No Man's Land
by Cyndercide
Summary: Deela Keiser had just gotten over her depression succeeding her parents' death and is abruptly abducted and shoved into a world where nothing is known.
1. The Beginning

_"For something to start, something must finish. This is the way of life, a philosophy. - There is always a beginning. A beginning to the end."_

* * *

**No Man's Land**

#

**I. The Beginning.**

* * *

_My name is Linda Mews._

_We have been here for, a while, it's hard to tell how long exactly._

_These days seem longer than usual here. Our best estimate, upwards of 40 hours._

_I have made allies with the bold, beautiful Rachael Liou, and the advantageous Trent Hicks._

_We have made camp, little settlements across varying areas._

_This... This place is not normal._

_Please, when you find us... If you find us..._

_...Help._

* * *

Run. That's all that was sifting through my head. Run. My vision was blurred with tears as my mind wouldn't let me stop, but my legs pleaded for rest. The lush, wet green grass slithered between my toes as I sprinted as fast as I could. Kiting myself through the ubiquitous evergreen tree's that stood ever so tall and intimidating. The distant sun was setting in an display of sorrow, oranges and yellows flared at the horizon as reds and purples meshed together. The howl of my follow grew every closer. My destination appeared to be getting farther away, and as I attempted to conserve my rational thought, a guttural roar shook all sanity from my trembling figure. The placid field of protection, my destination, grew ever so further away. And that's when I saw it, or rather, them. My fear vanished, replaced by a false serenity. They stood only a few feet from the field looking as gorgeous as I remembered. The woman was leaning silently on her hands which were folded together and planted on the man's shoulder. She was smiling at me even though tears stained her cheery face. Her blonde hair fell to her shoulders, resting on her dull blue tank-top. Seemingly mundane jeans wrapped around her legs. Lastly, a soft pool of green eye's embraced me. _Mom._ I ran faster, unknowing that my legs could propel me at such speeds. The man looked just as normal, with his short brown hair, chocolate eyes, blank-green T-shirt and ratty jeans. _Dad. _

Suddenly the constant thumping on the ground faltered which made me turn around. Thoughts, questions, and memories of them flooded back into my stressed mind, giving it an uneasy rest as I slowly began to stop running. "Mom! Dad!" I managed to croak through my hoarse throat.

"Hello, Dee." Came mother's soft and pleasant reply. However, something sounded off. Maybe it was because I hadn't seen them for 12 years, maybe it was that I forgot what her voice sounded like. Maybe it was because I had forgotten what they meant to me. Locking myself in solitude by letting no one get as close to me emotionally as they were, wasn't exactly the best treatment for grief and sorrow. Sure as hell felt good though.

Snapping myself out of my thoughts, I noticed that I was nearly beside them. Getting lost in your thoughts passes the time quickly I guess. I thought I was saved within their warm embrace, their presence alone was making me feel safe, but something else nagged at me from my lucid conscience. Something didn't seem right, but what did it matter, I was finally with my family, right? I took another glance up at their faces as if I had to reassure myself that this was the real deal, so to speak. I could not prepare for what I saw then and there. Time seemed to slow down around me as the horrible truth made itself visible.

Hair, Skin, and parts of clothing were rapidly peeling away from their bodies as the gentle wind whisked it away in chuncks at a time, eventually taking my parents with it. Leaving an empty feeling in the pit of my heart. A dark emptiness that could not filled with companionship or psychiatric work-up. This void was much worse than when I actually lost them in the first place. This was something much, much worse. For them to be so close to me, yet gone with the wind without so much as a single regret.

The world seemed to tick by minutes at a time as I stood in place with my eye's focused intently on where they had been standing. A monstrous crash on the ground in close proximity of my being shook me from my sorrows. Tears dripped freely from my eye's as there was no one to hide them from right now. I was alone for once, truly alone.

Another bang behind me reminded me of what fate would be bestowed on me if I stayed there. In all honesty, I did want to stay there. I did want to die. It would end this internal pain, it would take me to my parents again. But warm thoughts of Emily scrolled through my mind quickly which made me begin to run again. The fact that I could make even one other person happy is good enough. It didn't matter if I was in pain, as long as I was filling someone else with joy. That was sufficient to drive me forward. My legs pumped harder, straining myself to the very limits of my existance. Sweat trickled on my forehead and soaked my back. I dare not look behind me at fear of what beast would surely torture me if he had it's appandages on me. My goal, no, humanities goal of self-preservation was hanging in the balence as the beast bounded after me. My ears rung with a high pitch squel as the feral animal roared again. My bare feet quickly becoming raw against the grass and rock of the creek-side forest. The gentle breeze did nothing to soothe my worries as the horror crept closer and closer.

I watched desperately as the open field rushed closer to me and with one final stride, I was free. Free from the hunter, free from the misplaced indignation of nature. I turned around to the forest in hopes to see my attacker at bay, bearing a safe distance from my shield-like field. Instead, I was face to face with a dark nothingness. Midnight black shadows pierced through the forest, mingling with the rough auburn of the evergreen's bark. Finally allowing myself to relax for once in at least an hour of running, I dropped roughly to the ground without a second thought.

"Hey" came a voice from seemingly no where. It trailed off slowly, lessening in volume as it passed.

I laid my hands on my eye's and tried to reclaim my peace of mind. I took a deep breath in hopes to calm myself. My attempts of tranquility were quickly rendered futile as the almost-dream like voice called again.

"Deela..." The voice came swiftly and it seemingly rolled off the tongue quite well. Starting softly, rising in the middle, and then ending with a decrescendo. I shook my head in a vague attempt to clear my conscience, clear my mind of all thought.

"Come on Deela..." The voice eroded out of no where once more. This time it sounded closer, much closer. But with the fatigue in my legs, the tension on my body and exhaustion applied to my mind, I could not keep my eyes open for much longer. They seemed to close by themself as I slowly began to embrace the warmth of darkness.

* * *

Consciousness flooded back to Deela's sleeping form once her alarm clock, or her friend rather, began to yell at her. Deela sat up slowly and rubbed the grogginess out of her eye's. She emitted a large yawn while her body subtly woke up.

"You awake now, sleepy head?" Emily said with a joyous tone while simultaneously knocking playfully on Deela's forehead.

"Shu'up" Deela slurred through her yawn.

"I will once you stop making us late for school, now c'mon. Hurry up and take your shower you lazy child." Emily retorted, gleefuly mocking her friend.

"Alright, alright. Jeez." Deela finally surrendered to her friends prying hands and let herself be pulled upright. Slowly, she got out of her bed and walked past Emily to the communal showers, but not before images of her nightmare reflected in her mind and stole her happiness.

Deela Keiser and Emily Vawnelle had known eachother for quite a while. Even before the accident happened, Deela would always spend time with Emily whether it be immediately after school or just before bed, they would hang out. Even though Emily lived in the orphanage across town, and Deela lived with her parents, they acted like sisters. You would always catch them together, inseperable some might say. Whenever Deela wasn't with Emily however, she would be with her parents, telling them everything. This all changed on one egregious day. Her parents were going to the store to pick up some groceries, as per their usual Friday routine, except with one addition. They were T-boned at the intersection leading to the store. When the paramedics had arrived at the scene, they were announced dead. A couple weeks later, Deela was unsurprisingly diagnosed with depression...

That was a year and a half ago. Since then, she had moved into the Orphanage, by solemn request, and was in the company of the only person she found that she could stand; Emily. Deela was just overcoming her depression now, finally beating it with a combination of prescription meds and excercise. She was finally surpassing the nihilistic attitude, and transforming it into and overall realistic perspective. However, one thing did not change since the accident. She closed herself off to the world in fear of more emotional turmoil, and has not opened back up.

Deela let the water streak down her naked back as she stood petrified in the shower; a recollection of her dream running freely through her troubled mind. The fatigue, the pain, and the fear...

...It all came back to her, and for a brief moment, she gave in; reminded of the isolation she felt when the accident first happened, the hatred that she could do nothing to help them. However, she quickly overcame that feeling, for if she gave in it would be months before she would regain this current stature of calmness.

Staring blankly at the wall ahead of her, letting the water run down the drain, she closed her mind off to the outside world and to her memories. Focusing only on the water, the current it made, the graceful and fluid movement. For some reason, it stuck with her; she was fascinated with the unseen grace of the water.

She finally snapped out of her stupor and got out of the shower and dried herself off. Pushing the plaguin memories away, she realised that the day was Friday. She only had to suffer through this last day at school and then the weekend would allow her to relax.

* * *

Deela was in History; the class that no one liked and is more likely to bore you to sleep than teach you anything. The day at school past her by quickly- or rather, the first 3 periods had. She sat and stared at the teachers powerpoint presentation, idly fiddling with her pencil, waiting for the next line of notes to appear. Checking the classroom's clock, she noticed that there was only twenty minutes left in class and then she would be home free. This perked her up a small bit inside. On the outside, Deela chose to display no emotion other than calmness around people. _They_ might get uncomfortable, she thought.

Deela looked around the the classroom and noticed that the teacher was, in fact, not present yet the students still jotted down the notes obediantly. She took this time to peer over at her friend, Emily. She had short brown hair, cut crew-style. Lively red eye's melted into her pale skin which was laden with energy and bravery. A faded purple tank-top, achromatic pants, and ghetto open-toed sandals completed her ensemble.

Her attention was soon ripped from Emily and forced upon the teacher as he casually strolled back into the classroom. "Sorry about that; had a little mix-up with the schedule she did." The teacher announced to no one in particular. And, to be honest, Deela didn't think anyone cared.x

The History teacher then walked up to his laptop and brought forth another page of notes for every to copy down into their notebooks. Deela begrudgingly brought pencil to pen and started copying with an helpless sigh. The rest of the class went like this, copying page after page of notes.

When the bell finally rang Deela, having carrying all her school supplies in her bag, walked straight outside and waited for Emily who had to make a brief trip to her locker. Deela was saying goodbye to some energetic classmates when Emily finally caught up to her. "So sorry for taking so long" Emily said casually, "On the bright side, I found out that the county fair is tomorrow. Would you like to go?"

"Yeah, sure. It'd be a nice break from the everlasting studies." Deela replied coyly.

Upon entering the empty orphanage after an hour long walk from the other side of town, Deela and Emily went straight to the common room and cracked open their books.

"Time for homework!" Emily said sarcastically with a scoff.

"Oh, I'm bursting with joy." Deela mockingly replied.

Hours quickly past by as they slowly finished worksheet after worksheet, question after question. It was now 10 PM. 6 hours of homework, divided between actually doing the work, and goofing off with eachother. In reality, it should of only taken 3 hours of working, but they had goofed off regularly with eachother. Still though, they enjoyed it and it was better than anything else they could do on a Friday. Emily and Deela really seemed to enjoy each other's company, no matter what they were doing, they just loved being together. They were compatible friends, and that's what mattered.

"We should probably get to bed if we're going to that fair thing tomorrow. It'll be a long day." Deela said while packing up her books.

"Yeah," Emily replied, "I suppose we should."

"Promise you'll get up early enough for the fair, Dee?" Emily questioned playfully.

"If I'm not up by ten, wake me. Sound fair?" Deela proposed.

"Fair enough. Although, I don't see why I always have to drag your ass out of bed, some day it'd be nice to have the royal treatment." Emily answered with a wink.

And with soft giggles kept quiet by pursed lips, they went into their own rooms and flopped right into their seperate bed. Listening to the silent hymn of a promise, they fell soundly asleep.

* * *

Emily was the first one up that morning, waking up at her normal 6:30 AM. She wiped the grogginess from her eye's and stretched, giving an unnessesarily loud yawn. Lazily getting out of her bed, Em stalked over to the kitchen and grabbed some cereal. She started to think while having a mouthful of Fruit Loops, _what will the fair be like? _She was expecting a stereo-typical circus type fair with big tents and clowns and all._ Who'll be there? _She thought briefly of how many people in this town knew eachother, and of how many people were going to give Deela their sympathies. Even though the accident happened a long, long time ago, people would not stop reminding her of it and it drove Emily crazy with sorrow for her friend.

Before long, she had lost herself in her own train of thought. Time whizzed by while she ate her cereal, idly concentrating on foreseeing the days events.

Ten o'clock came sooner than everyone was ready for it. Em was still in her Pajama's and Deela was still fast asleep laying in her bed with one arm up and bent at the elbow, lowering down to her head. The other arm leisurely strewn off the side of the bed.

Em shook Deela softly at first, and when she didn't wake, Em starting to shake harder and harder until Deela was knocked off the bed with the returning kinetic energy. "Uhhh... What time is it?" She slurred softly, the grogginess crealy audible in her speech.

"It's 10:05 silly. Hurry up and get dressed, we have a fair we have to go to you lazy woman." Emily replied with her hand on her hip, her other hand wagging a finger at her friend. Without another word, Deela grabbed some clothes and ran to the washroom to take a shower.

* * *

Deela and Emily hadn't been at the fair for very long before they ran into some elder friends of there's. Deela and Emily were widely known across their part of town, which, coincidentally, was where the fair was. They were known in their hiccup town as the out-going duo of friends who would not turn down a good challenge. And because of this reputation, they were recruited to run a couple of the trivial fair games such as the Ring Toss, Bottle Shot and Skeeball.

"Aww, nice try sir." Deela said empathetically as a customer miss the bottle.

They were operating the Ring Toss while the manager was away for a couple minutes. Customer after customer came up to their kiosk to try their luck with planting a ring ontop of bottles from a distance. That was the defined goal of it at least. Mainly, people just came to fair's for the social aspect of meeting new people.

As the last customer was leaving, Deela and Emily knelt down to pick up and reset the bottles for the next challenger. But when they got back up, they only saw their school friends; Chris with his purple hoodie and skinny jeans, and Bree with her bleach blonde ponytail, green T-shirt and navy blues sweatpants. "Hey," Chris said with a shocked expression, "didn't expect you to be running this shin-dig"

"It's called a Ring Toss, dude." Deela shot back with a faint chuckle, "how about giving it a go?"

The friend in question laughed at this awkwardly and raised an eyebrow. "You know I'm no good at carny games, Dee."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to try. Only a dollar per go. C'mon Chris." Emily butted in with a smile.

"No thanks" he repeated, defensively holding up his hands. "I'd rather keep my money."

Emily and Deela offered a mocking smirk as if to say 'Mhmm, Sure.' Right when Chris was about to make a snide remark, the manager of the kiosk returned after his 'much needed' break.

"Thank you guy's. Here's what I owe you, as promised." He offered each girl a small sum of coins, but they politely refused saying that they had no need for it at the time and that they didn't like to take money from other people without purpose, and holding a carny kiosk for an hour wasn't exactly 'work'.

"Well, alright. At the very least you should take some of these." The manager replied reassuringly while handing the girls a handful of ride tickets. The girls both chuckled at his generosity.

"Now these, we can use!" Bree happily interrupted while gleefully staring from the tickets to the festivites behind her.

Deela, Chris, and Emily all gave a hearty chuckle.

Deela glanced at Bree with a smirk, then turned back to the kiosk Manager. "Thanks," she said, "I have a feeling we're about to use these."

Deela gave the manager a wink and took the tickets from his outstretched arm.

"C'mon guy's!" She shouted with a smirk. "Last one there is a rotten egg!"

And with that, Deela bolted away from the Ring Toss leaving the others briefly awestruck before chasing after her, laughing.

* * *

They eventually caught up to her after much running, zigging and zagging through crowds, and totally neccessary cart wheels. Chris' rusty blonde hair was being utterly massacred by the wind, but Deela could easily recognize him from his toothy smile.

"About time." She called out, waving one arm.

"Oh, come on. You didn't even tell us where you were going!" Emily shot back once she arrived with Bree.

She only responded with a slight shrug of her shoulders. The line was moving now, and they were near the front. Pulling everyone close together, Deela locked eye's with one of the Zipper worker's, silently telling him that they were all together. The worker briskly walked up to them, gently took the tickets from Deela's hand, took her and Emily and put them in the last available cart, completely contradicting Deela's unspoken command. Deela quickly shoved the remaining six tickets in her pocket. Upon getting buckled in, Emily and Deela looked at eachother. Staring intently into the other's eye's, they knew that they were going to abandon Bree and Chris on this ride.

The cage slammed shut and locked itself in place, sealing their ambivalent fate for the next couple minutes. With a quick and sudden lurch, the cage began lifting off the ground causing the young women to laugh for no apparent reason. The cage started rocking back and forth with nothing to stablize it. Their hearts started pumping against their chest in anticipation. The cage started speeding up, twirling the cage as it circled the structure itself. The sky and the earth rotated swiftly infront of them as they sat strapped in their chairs, screaming with joy. Their movements elicited creaks and groans from the cage. Eventually, the peppy carny music faded away and their container's movements faultered; the ride was ending.

One by one the cage's were opened and people were unbuckled by the employee's. Every riders hair was ruffled and messy; like the wind had fiercly attacked it. Deela was no exception. Deela's unnatural synthesis of brown and dirty blonde intertwining hair that was normally breast length, was now coiled up above her resembling an afro. Emily's hair however, was a different story. She had crew-cut short brown hair and it remained the same through the entire endeavour.

As the two got out of their cage, looking flustered and dizzy, Chris and Bree caught up to them. They jokingly put their arms around the two girls as if Em and Dee were drunk and needed support to stand.

"Hair's looking as beautiful as ever, Dee." Bree mocked with an almost unnoticable smirk.

"I thought the wind wouldn't get inside of the cage..." Deela feebly tried to defend herself while fixing her hair.

"Yeah, and how'd that turn out for you?" Chris replied after a few moments of silence from Bree.

"Oh, not you too Chris." Emily sighed, resulting in a laugh from Chris.

"Yeah, why not?" He said smugly with a shrug.

"You guy's are all awful." Deela spoke up in between chuckles.

"Yeah, we know." replied Chris with a ear-to-ear grin of his own.

"So, where do you guy's wanna head next?" Emily asked.

"Umm... How many tickets are left?" Chris wondered.

Deela checked in her pocket and brought out the remaining tickets. "Six." She said after counting them, "that leaves two for me and Em, and four for you two."

* * *

The four of them walked around for a couple minutes deciding on what to do with the remaining tickets. Eventually, they settled on it: They would look around the fair for the bumper cars, which took two tickets per person, and they would attempt to get in even though they only had six tickets. They had to hurry though, it was almost 8 PM and the fair closes at 8:30.

"Come on guy's. It can't be too hard to find." Deela pleaded to the group.

They were desperately searching for the bumper car tent, hoping to get there before the entire fair closed. Some kiosks and rides were already closed, like the ring toss, skeeball, zipper, and octopus. It seemed as though every ride they went passed or looked at, closed a minute after.

Deela was looking around, near the merry-go-round, when the ever so familiar ring tone went off from her phone. She had a text from Bree: "I found it! It's right beside the Tilt o whirl!"

She noticed that the text was sent to her, Emily, and Chris, so she wouldn't need to text either of them. After much looking, Deela finally found the Tilt-o-Whirl, right beside the now-closed octopus, and beside that was the bumper cars tent! She checked the time on her phone: 8:17P.M it read in a blue cursive font. _We can still make it._

The entire group arrived at the Bumper Cars around the same time. Bree had proactively taken a spot in line to let the other three skip ahead to her. It didn't take long for everyone to locate Bree and take their position in line beside her. "8:23P.M." Deela read out loud. "There should be time for one more run of the bumper cars before the fair closes."

"My life will finally be complete" Emily joked, which was rewarded by chuckles all around.

Suddenly, the line started moving ahead; people were releasing custody of the cars and getting out of the stadium as others were walking into the arena, giving their tickets, and obtaining their own cart.

"When we get up to Ezra, I'll handle it. I know him the best." Emily said authoritatively.

"Yeah, alright. No argument here." Deela replied.

"Ditto." said Chris.

"Non débat avec moi." Bree spoke, and chuckled for no reason. "French is fun."

"Oui, il est." Deela confirmed.

"Oh, shut up you two! You both know that Em and I don't know it." Chris squinted his eye's.

"Fine..." Deela sighed and rolled her eye's.

As the line became shorter and shorter, Deela found herself reflecting on yesterday's dream, once again. The nightmare that it was, the haunting of those tainted memories. An abrupt cessation of the lines movement ripped her back to present, keeping her depression at bay. She could handle it for now.

"Hey, Ezra!" Emily greeted cheerfully.

Deela noticed that the sun sparkled off of Ezra's clean, light brown hair. His glasses framed his face and his mouth was plastered in a tight smile. He wore a purple T-shirt underneath his rainbow vest, supplied by the bumper car tent. However, nothing covered his ripped jeans or gray runners.

"Hey, you. What's up?" Ezra responded with a smile.

"Oh, nothing much..." Emily said shifting from the ball of her foot to the toes and back. "Hey, we only have six tickets for the four of us. Do you think you could let us in?"

"Oh yeah. Easy peasy! Just give me your tickets and hop on in." Ezra replied.

Deela stepped forward and handed Ezra the tickets with a smile. "Thanks Ez."

"Yeah, thank you Ezra!" Everyone shouted.

Ezra laughed whole-heartedly. "No problem guy's. Enjoy!"

"Oh, we will." Chris shot back over his shoulder.

* * *

All four of them picked bumper-cars that were quite close to eachother, just to make sure that they would get the first hit of the game. Deela and Emily were the first ones to settle into their cars. They looked at each other, then to Ezra who was closing the gate, then back to each other.

"Alright everyone. This will be our last run of the day." An anonymous voice from a P.A System announced. "Enjoy."

Pretty soon the music started going and the car's gained traction. Deela stabbed the accelerator with her foot and launched right into Emily with a squeel of joy, which was cut short by Bree slamming into her from the side, and Chris from the back. Emily backed up and pulled a U-turn, attempting to attack some random people in the cluster of cars.

Deela saw Emily trying to escape in the wave of random people but couldn't get over to her with her cart backed in a rounded corner. "Bree, Chris. Em's going to hide in the cluster of people down there. Let's stop her before she can get there!" Deela shouted to them.

With a nod of approval from both of them, they drove off after Emily. Someone had pinned her sideways against the wall, so it was almost too easy for the torrent of friends to smack her silly. "For Narnia!" Bree cried out while they raced through the crowd to get to Emily.

Chris was side-checked by someone and pinned to the wall before he could get to Emily. Deela and Bree sped past quickly, desperately trying to catch up to her. Someone thought ill of this and headed for Deela, aiming to knock her car to the wall. But he missed, and Deela got away scott-free. Bree didn't, however. The guy who missed Deela, kept going and crashed Bree into another bumper car racer. The domino effect sums up what happened pretty well.

Deela was the last one pursuing Emily after she had cleverly avoided capture by the others. Deela was gaining on her slightly since Emily had to weave in and out of ongoing collisions, whereas Deela just sailed straight through the passers-by. Emily was in the home stretch, she was heading for someone on the opposite side of the arena and no one was in her way. Deela however, was tailing her, catching up ever so slowly. As Emily closed the distance to the blind driver, Deela was gearing up.

Finally, Emily stabbed the oblivious driver right into the wall with her cart, and bounced back off his. Deela wondered if she could beat the timer on this ride to bump her friend, but sadly the bumper cars' festive music started to fade slowly. Her carts acceleration died, but the kinetic energy held. She went skidding across the floor and rammed right into Emily's cart as she was getting out. Her cart plunged into the adjacent one and rebounded back, forcing Emily to sit back down in the cart abruptly.

She stood back up and got out of her cart while she laughed convulsively. Deela soon joined in, after making sure that she wasn't hurt.

"Finally got you, Em." Deela managed to spurt out between laughs.

"Yeah. I was trying so hard to avoid you the whole round." Emily confessed through her giggles.

"Well, you almost got away with it." Deela shot back with a wink.

The two walked together to the exit where they found Bree and Chris. It was now 8:33P.M., according to their phones, and their curfew is not for another hour and a half.

"Hey. The orphanage's curfew isn't until 10, so what do you guy's wanna do? Do you think we should help and clean up this place?" Asked Deela generously.

"Yeah, that sounds good to me. I don't have to be home for a while." Replied Chris.

"Perhaps we should start with cleaning up the kiosks, it'd be easier and I bet we would have to explain ourselves if we started cleaning up the rides." Added Deela.

"Yeah, that sounds good." Bree agreed. "Em, you in?"

"Yeah, sure. Let's start with the ball toss. It's right over there." Emily responded.

And with that, they were off towards the ball toss kiosk. The only awkward thing about it was that they had no idea who the manager was, despite seeing him earlier today. They walked over to the kiosk regardless. Emily found the manager in the back, loading his pick-up truck with the kiosk's supplies. "Come on guy's, he's back here." She whispered.

Almost immediately, Deela, Bree, and Chris appeared behind Emily. Bree and Chris standing barely infront of Deela, just enough to make Deela feel more secure. Ever since the accident, Deela had help a state of ambiguity towards strangers. She was afraid that they would sense her distraught emotion within. So, naturally, she passively stood behind her friends, both proverbially and physically so that nothing would cause the other to question her mental integrity.

"Hey." Emily said awkwardly.

The man loading objects into his pick-up stopped and turned around to face the group.

"Hello there, youngsters." He greeted in a cheery tone. "What can I do you for?"

Emily laughed at his unexpected innuendo. "We were just wondering," she scratched the back of her neck, "if there was anything we could do to help you... Ya know, clean up?"

The man guffawed loudly at her offer. "Yeah, there sure is! You can start by helping be stuff all this junk into my truck, here."

"Alright. Awesome! Let's get to work ladies!" Emily said over her shoulder.

"Hey!" Chris shouted, making everyone laugh.

* * *

Minutes past, and soon, hours. They were busy cleaning up kiosk after kiosk with a variety of different characters. It was during one of these clean ups that Chris' mom called him via cell phone and told him to get home because it was getting late. After which, Bree decided that she would go too because she lived on the other side of town and it was a long walk. And so, it was down to Deela, Emily, and whichever kiosk personnell were still around to clean up.

Deela pulled out her cell phone and checked the time: 9:46P.M., it read in it's stylish blue font. "Hey, Em. This'll be the last kiosk, we have to be home in 14 minutes."

"Oh yeah, sure. Ya hear that, Garry?"Emily called out.

"Loud and clear, luv." Garry replied in his british accent.

"God I love british accents." sighed Emily.

"Em, now's not the time to dilly dally, we have to clean this up before 10. Come on! Power clean!" Shouted Deela.

The group laughed away the time, exchanging witty puns and silly jokes to each other as they cleaned up the kiosk.

* * *

"Hey guy's. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off?" Deela asked.

"No, why?" questioned Emily.

"Oh, no reason. He's all right now though." Deela responded wittily.

"Oh, wow Dee. You've sunk that low?" Emily smirked at Deela while lifting a box full of prizes.

"I haven't sunk at all, I've always been on this level." Deela replied with a wink as she helped Emily maneouver the box into place.

"Yeah, two can play at that game." Emily challenged.

"Bring it." Deela called out her bluff.

"A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail." Emily said proudly.

"If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed." Deela countered.

"To write with a broken pencil is pointless." Emily shot back while helping Garry with another box.

"Spouting one-liners back and forth isn't exactly a good way to test our punny ways, is it?" Deela wondered out loud.

"Yeah. I know, right? We need a better way to settle this... How about rhyming every sentence?" Emily challenged again while Deela squinted her eye's.

"Bring it" Deela said while putting another some rings in a box.

"Alright. Garry, you want to be our official starter of this competition?" Emily asked.

Garry raised one eyebrow, and thought for a second.

"Yeah, sure. I guess I could start you off, as long as you don't sit there and helplessly scoff." He finally said in a goofy tone.

"Oh, wow. You witty little kitty." Emily retorted once she packed in yet another box of goodies.

"Hey! Don't leave me out, you smelly trout." Deela called once she finished packing stuff into her box and stuffing it into the pick-up truck.

"Don't worry, you silly billy." Emily winked and looked for some more boxes. "Hey. That's all hun, we are done!"

"And not a moment too soon. How about that you old coon." Deela smirked at Garry who, in return, squinted back at her.

"Ah well. We better get going Dee. The ol' Orphanage will be worried if we're not home soon. See you later Garry!" Emily said bittersweetly.

"See you later!" Deela waved as she followed Emily back to the street.

"Buh-Bye, luv. Stay safe!" He called.

* * *

Deela and Emily walked on the side-walk, underneath the street lights. They past by ubiquitous buildings, but it seemed that no one else was on the streets at this time of night. Even though it was only 9:57P.M., according to Dee's phone. But that didn't change the fact that there was no one using the side-walk, and the really rare car on the street.

"Hey, Dee?" Emily asked after a large moment of silence. "What did you think of Garry?"

"Well. He wasn't skinny. His purple T-shirt couldn't hide that. His glasses were cool, and his short brown hair... He wasn't that great looking to be honest." Deela modestly replied. "But he was fun to be around. Nice sense of humor."

"No, no. I meant what do you think of him. He was a stranger, and he never... well. He was a stranger." Emily corrected herself.

"Oh. In that sense... It was unnerving at first. But as we kept working together and I got to know him better. But still, it was really awkward and, to me, ill-advised by my consciousness." Deela solemnly admitted.

She hated talking about this kind of stuff with Emily, but she knew that if she didn't keep it in check than she would have another episode, and no one would benefit from that.

Once they arrived inside, Emily and Deela went into their separate bedrooms, meeting up only once more to brush their teeth and wash their face. After which, and a quick 'Good Night', they went into their own bedroom again and laid down, idly humming tunes and waiting for sleep to come. Even though it was 10 o'clock, they felt extremely tired because they had had a rough and taxing day.

Emily was the first to fall asleep, as usual; she could fall asleep anywhere in a matter of minutes. Deela however, was another story. She tossed and turned for an unidentifyiable quantity of minutes, most likely spreading into hours. Without getting the least bit sleepy, Deela got out of her bed and don a gray T-shirt, Auburn hoodie and fitting jeans. She quickly and quietly left her room and walked outside into the night. She just walked with no goal in sight, other than to pass the time. Deela just kept on marching towards nothing, wherever her feet would take her. Letting her mind wander to places that it really shouldn't. She began to rethink of the nightmare, of her parents, of the feelings that came like a torrent of guilt for not being there for them. For letting them go and do what they did. The damage that was inflicted, now personified deep inside her psyche.

As she was thinking, she didn't notice when she arrived in the park, she was just there all of a sudden. Laying down comfortably on the soft, dry grass, staring into the heavens, counting the stars. The feeling of the grass on her skin reminded her of all the time camping she had done, how great she was with the outdoors. Maybe it was that fact that put her at peace, maybe it was the counting of the stars that made her tired, but one thing was for sure. She fell asleep.

* * *

When she woke up, she definitely was not where she had fallen asleep. Shamefully, it took her a quick second to realize this because of the air rushing past her as she fell from the sky head over heels and repeating. There was a device strapped on her back, that was one of her first noticings. She didn't know what it was, but at this rate she was going to be splattered on the floor of the jungle. A jungle, she realized, that is not present in her home town.

She slapped at her back and found the object was of backpack size and shape except it had an almost metalic texture to it. She slapped at it again, trying desperately to grab something, anything, from it but to no avail. She tried again, _third time's the charm_, she thought hopefully. And this time, her hand struck something; a cord. Wrapping her hand around it fiercly, she pulled. Her hand slipped off it, but her pinky slipped through a hole and the last minute and held it tight to her hand. The cord flew out and, to her surprise, the backpack like contraption burst open. A cloth material evacuated from the new opening and unfolded into the sky. Catching the air in it, it slowed her down immensely, but jolted her unexpectedly. Deela looked up at it and noticed what it was, her savoir in a time of need, her objectified knight-in-shining-armor; A parachute.

She grabbed the two levers that settled themselves beside her and used them to steer left and right. Deela finally managed to get a first look at where she was since she woke up. A massive jungle covered the ground infront, behind and to both sides of her as far as the eye can see. She looked up to see where the sun was; rising or setting. She saw the sun, over her shoulder, but that wasn't what made her jaw drop. It was the fact that a much larger planet stood near it, almost beside it. It looked a lot like Jupiter, with it's brown and white stripes. There was another planet nearby that one, a smaller one; maybe a moon. She knew instantly that someone was wrong.

A thought started to formulate in her mind. One thought and one thought only repeated verbatim in her head like a mantra. One thought that should never be said by anyone in the right mind, but then again, She wasn't. One thought that would forever change her life.

_This... This is not Earth._

* * *

**A/N**: _This is my Secret Project that I have been working on and revising for a while... like. A while, a while... I'm hoping for around 8k words per chapter, but we'll see. I won't have Author notes on __all chapters, and when I do, they are going to be minimal to sustain the immersion in the story. _

_One question though, do you like these quotes at the beginning of my chapters, or would you like them eradicated? And just by the way, if you guessed already, I have no idea of how an orphanage works or looks like..._

_Rate's and Review's help chapters come out faster! They are much appreciated, and very well replied to with love. =)_

**_I apologize sincerely for the long wait.  
_**

_Love and Laughter,  
Archangel._


	2. Impact

___"You never really know what you have until it is ripped from your grasp."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**II. Impact.**

* * *

_I'm leaving these notes behind in case things get dark._

_If you're reading these, I will try to help you as best I can._

_..._

_There isn't a lot of water here._

_When you find some, you better stock up-_

_make something to carry water, you'll need it._

* * *

Deela held onto the parachute's straps firmly with her clamy hands and it gently descended through the air. Watching the sun set on the horizon as she idly glided further towards the canopy of the forest, she noticed the obscure beige sky, comepletly void of stars. It looked as though a beige coloured cloud has covered the entire sky. But even then, there were three very visible celestial bodies in the twilight sky. One of the planets looked uncannily like Jupiter except for the fact that it had an astroid ring. There was another one adjacent to it, veritably smaller, resembling that of Mercury. There was a moon overlapping 'Mercury' as well. It was diminutive in size, and appeared to Deela as being a vapid brown.

Deela felt an involuntary shiver course through her spine causing her to swing her legs for any heat possible. With the sun dying down, it was getting quite cold for her. Another involuntary shiver ran it's way through her body while she examined the terrain of this new area. Vast rolling hills enveloped a boundless jungle. Various ferns, vines, and tree's were visible from the air. Along with the diverse assortment of unknown plants came the aroma of the jungle. It's distinct scent reminded Deela a lot of a thick rain storm, and that fresh air fragrance of a dense forest filled with vines, combined into one flavour.

Deela had dropped more than she thought she did in the time that she was examining the jungle. The canopy quickly snuck up and brushed against her feet, to which she kicked away the feeble branches, breaking them off the tree's and coasting into a conveniently placed clearing. Breaking off all the tree limbs in her way, and occasionally getting scratched, she eventually coasted to the bed of grass and dirt. The parachute fell after her, laying ontop of her like a blanket. Deela knew this wasn't a dream because she could feel the wind sliding through her fingers and hair, she could feel the branches scratching at her legs like the tainted hands of death. Thoughts were screaming through her mind, faster than she could coherently decipher. _Where am I? How did I get here? Where is everyone? Where is Emily? How do I get home...?_

Deela lifted the parachute off of her and climbed out from under it. She stood beside the parachute, arms intertwined to help with the chill even though there was no wind. Clearing her mind and thinking over her options and what to do when you get lost in the wild. Waiting for someone to come was certainly not going to work, she was no where near civilization, if what she saw from the air was any indication. _Step one,_ she thought, _is to find shelter, food, and water. _With a step over a few vines, and a jump over a fallen tree, she set off looking for water. But not before thoughts of loss and regret seeped into her mind. Wanting to see Emily again, wanting to be with her friends instead of separated by who knows how many miles. Deela had an obscure feeling that last night was the last time she will ever see home again. The last time she will ever get to see her her friends, the last time she will get to see Emily.

The impact of this entire thing had finally dawned on Deela as she trecked through the jungle with a purpose. Head held by her shoulders as she lost herself in the memories of her friends and of the good times back home. A dry tear flowed down her cheek, landing on the rather damp moss, when she envisioned Emily's cheery face staring at her. Deela didn't emit a single sound of unpleasantry, not a sob nor sniffle. She trecked on through the jungle, shuffling her feet idly. Laying her hand flat out on a damp tree trunk to stop and lean on it, she closed her eyes and willed her memories to fade. Not allowing that same emotional low that came when she lost her parents. She had to be strong, she had to continue on; keep going for her sake. If she let herself succumb to her own nightmares, there was no going back; it would be over for her.

Deela lifted her hand from the Tree's trunk and started to glide through the forest with a newfound determination. She _was_ going to make it back home. She _was_ going to see Emily again. She _will_ live to tell her story.

* * *

As she was ducking under a fallen tree that was propped up on another tree, she saw a tiny spec falling from the sky at a rapid rate. Contrasted against the otherwise beige sky, this darkened figure was hard to miss in the clean air. Deela jumped onto the tree that she was ducking under, and moved forward, slowly escalating to see the figure better. Finally she stood against where the tree was propped against and sat down, looking up at the figure. It came down faster and faster with every second that past. She knew the figure was going to hit the ground a decent way to the left of her. Deela jumped off the tree, proceeding to tuck and roll when she hit the floor; a little trick that she was taught some time ago when Free-Running was popular. Jumping up from the roll, she headed towards the direction that the wind was tacking the figure. Not entirely sure what it was but she knew that her curiosity would eventually get the better of her so it would be best if she just go find out now; it's a shorter walk than from wherever the hell Deela will find water. Vaulting over a large log and dodging a few vines, she scrambled further and further into the dense forest, leaving her vantage point behind.

After vaulting yet another log, she notice a monstrous hill lay in front of her. Determined to find out what that figure is, she start scaling the hill. Climbing on toppled tree's and stray logs the whole way. Eventually, she reached the top and what she saw knocked the air right out of her. It was a serene pool of water glistening in the still setting sun. Still as can be, not a ripple disturbing the moment of serendipity that beheld Deela as she stood awestruck in front of the pool. She could see the bottom of the quiant pool, through the crystal clear water, was layden with rocks resembling a stream from near her school. She knelt down to the shore, practically dropping onto her knee's, swishing her dirty hands through the water. A satisfying look on Deela's face as the cold water snapped her from a daze. She looked up to the opposite side of the pond to find the dark figure from the sky, which was a lot bigger than she had originally thought, had crashed there. Slowly standing up, she shambled her way to it while captured in a stupor. She realized that the dark figure was not, in fact, some random piece of foliage clouding her view or a leaf blowing away in the wind, but rather another parachute. She idly sauntered over to where it lay motionless on the shoreline. The puffy gray parachute was not what she could've imagined for it brang a whole new level of hope to her. It granted her wishful thinking and raised her hopes.

Deela's eye's scanned the billowy contraption slowly. Her eye's widened with shock when she found a slight raise in the parachute in one specific section. It was a small ascension from the normal look of it, but it caught her eye. The same way that a slightly out of place phone or book would.

Deela's mind raced through thoughts, ranging from wondering about the state of health the person is in, to whether or not it _is_ a person. She abruptly lifted the entire parachute, throwing it to the side, to reveal a woman's body. Tattered, stringy auburn hair tied up in a ponytail. A purple headband carresses her forehead. Her dried up, reddened skin reflected her look of fearlessness and impassiveness. A dark blue hoodie draped over her shoulders, a purple tank-top underneath. A set of baggy black yoga pants draped her legs, complete with white boots. There is a combat knife hilt very visibly sticking out of her footwear. With the sun basically down already, revolving around the underside of the planet, Deela dropped to her knee's and attempted to wake the unknown stranger. After no response, she plants two fingers on her neck and proceeds to check her pulse. Thankfully she finds a pulse. Relieved, she stands up and, streching her back all the while, glared once more at the pond, back to it's serenity but seemingly different in total night time than in twilight.

Ripping her gaze off of the pond, she returned to the mysterious woman and took the knife from her boot thinking that she would need it more than she, for now anyway. For, if she died during the night, she could use the knife to protect herself better than fists could. But for the night, she chose the 'big sister' approach to this stranger, seeing as she was the key to civilization, she would know how to get back and at the very least they could work together until they're rescued. And they could talk to eachother to ensure their sanity stays intact. Deela chose to climb one of the admittedly smaller tree's in the vacinity, and sit on an enormous sized branch for the time being. Waiting and watching for when she will wake up. With her thirst and hunger at bay, for the time being, she could protect this woman until she wakes up. She laid her back on the tree and, with almsot no chance of falling off thanks to the size of the branch, she closed her eye's. Deela opened her eye's again and slowly brought her wrist to eye level, looking at her watch. It was too dark to see it with the natural light, so she activated the watches light and was shocked to see that the watch was displaying a bright green _0600. Six A.M. and the sun is just now setting? _She pondered. _Something is definitely not right here..._

..._here._ The word reverberated in her head more times than she would like. _...Here._ It reminded her of the distance between home and ..._here. _It reminded her of the loss she has felt before. The loss she almost succumbed to. _...here._ The word tormented her, it reminded her of Emily's innocent smile and playful personality. How she was always there for her. She would be awake by this time, unless Deela's watch truly was broken. She wondered how Emily would react to Deela being _...here._ The look on Emily's face when she bursts into Deela's room later on, looking for her but she isn't there. She is..._here._ The guild of letting down someone, a friend; A sister.

Deela took a deep breath of the fresh, clean air, sensing that same distict aroma flowing through her nose and body again. Exhaling, she let all her fears and worries bleed away with her breath; something her counsellor had taught her. Opening her eye's again, slowly, Deela found a lush green jungle all around her. Wherever she looked it was greens and browns. Looking up at the sky, expecting a blue horizon she was shocked when she found out that what she saw in the air was not a dream after all, for the sky was beige.

She let her head bump the tree and her hands filled her lap while she sat silently and stayed to her thoughts. Deela tried to convince herself that she wasn't on Earth anymore, but she just couldn't. The rational part of her brain refuted every point bluntly, for how could she breath if she wasn't on Earth, how was the gravity the same? But then how can she explain the beige sky, or the extra close celestial bodies floating in it? How could she rationalize the massive forest she saw from the sky, or how she even ended up in the sky? If she was abducted, they would've killed her. They wouldn't take the time to fly to, quite possibly, the largest forest on the face of the Earth just to throw her out of the airplane with a parachute.

Eventually, after staying up with vigil, she realized that all of her questions will be answered once the unknown stranger came to. With that conclusion, she gently lowered herself off of the admittedly ginormous branch, and grabbed another one. Swinging off of that one, she hit the floor and ducked and rolled. Getting back on her feet, Deela decided to check on the stranger once more, just in case. As she expected though, her eye's are still closed and she is not responding to any outside stimuli. However, her pulse is still in check. With an interrupting involuntary shiver, she stood back up, retrieved the parachute, and recovered him just incase something did stalk by while she was sleeping. Walking around the pond, looking for a safe place to sleep without any possible threat, she finally chose the branch that she just jumped from. No other place offers an unparalleled vantage point as well as putting Deela out of cover.

After many agility trials getting back up to the branch, she laid down. The decidedly wide branch could easily fit 3 people side by side with room to spare. Deela took one last look at the parachute covered woman before donning her hood and closing her eye's, resting her head on the bark of the tree like many minutes before. With a deep breath to soothe her sorrows and worries of another abysmal awakening, she welcomed the unconsciousness of sleep.

* * *

Deela's eye twitched involuntarily as a diminutive leaf fluttered by. She instinctively batted at the leaf which, in turn, woke her up. Her eye's slowly drifted open while her hands sluggishly fumbled for purchase on what she was sitting on. She bolted upright and her eye's snapped open at the feel of bark and the look of the forest. She had hoped, against hope, that her time in the jungle was all but a dream. Unfortunately for her, fate had other plans.

She looked down to her left and saw that the parachute had been moved, almost folded upon itself. Deela examined around the parachute to find the stranger and finally found him shambling sluggishly towards the serene pond, seeming to still be drowsy from being passed out so long.

The sun wasn't up yet, it was just beginning to rise. Deela checked her watched which beeping in turn. It had just turned 2200, Ten P.M. _Well,_ she thought, _that's... different._

Deela shifted her stare back at the woman, who was now bending down to the pool of water cupping it in her hand.

"I wouldn't drink that if I were you" Deela called out from the branch, testing her own voice.

The stranger dropped the water right away and went to grab her knife with quick reflexes, but Deela still had it with her, hidden artfully at the trunk of her sleeping tree. Deela watched with fascination as she realized her knife was gone and stumbled down into a more defensive fighting stance.

"Where..." The woman said, testing her voice. "Where are you?"

"Up here." Deela called back.

Right after she said that, she slid herself gracefully off of the sleeping branch, and dramatically swung off of the smaller branch near the bottom. Tucking and rolling, she recovered her footing seemingly effortlessly. Pulling the move off with a graceful and talented technique that could only be described by her as a fluke.

She kneeled down and picked up her combat knife from between the roots of the tree and held it high for the stranger to see.

"This what you looking for?" She waved her arm for emphasis.

"That move you just pulled was risky as hell. What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" She shouted. "But yes, I was looking for that. Where did you find it?"

"I.. kind of took it off your body when I found you here." Deela replied sheepishly while taking off her hood, revealing her bicoloured hair.

She wasn't expecting the answer that the woman gave, but she wasn't going to let it show. She had no friends here for support, she had to deal with everything herself. It was time to start doing things herself, she had been hiding for far too long, letting the fear of rejection get in the way. It's now or never.

"You- you WHAT!" The stranger called out as if Deela had insulted her.

"You were unconscious, I didn't know for how long, and I could do more good with it than you could!" Deela countered more malicious than she intended.

"Oh yeah? How d'you figure?" Came the woman's reply.

"I was conscious." Was Deela's only words.

An awkward silence followed as Deela walked up to her and kindly gave her knife back to it's rightful owner, who mumble her incoherent 'Thanks' as if she hadn't even said it before.

"So, what can I call you?" The woman asked the obvious question that was just waiting to be asked.

"I'm Deela Keiser. And you are...?" Deela said cheerfully, carrying her name with pride as she held her hand out to shake, which the stranger reciprocated reluctantly with a barely audible sigh.

"I'm Melina Mailer." The woman spat.

Her before rigid and renegade features turned soft and curious in surprise at something that Deela couldn't see.

"Woah... What is that?" Melina said, her eye's wider than her agape mouth.

* * *

**A/N:**_I apologize for the short size of this chapter, but a lot has happened in this chapter. Hopefully quality makes up for quantity. =/ *hugs*_

_**Aug 1 UPDATE: **I think I owe you guy's an apology, or at the very least, an explanation of why this chapter is short and veritably half-assed/rushed. So, I had one day until I was going on a half month holiday with some family, and I did not want this story to become stale while I was gone. I thought it was a good idea to quickly type up a chapter for you guy's. Once I was done, I re-read some parts and fixing the spelling/grammatical errors that I could see (which I didn't do as good a job as I thought), I thought it was a pretty well done chapter- shows what I know when I'm tired, eh?_

_So.. No, I'm not going to re-write the chapter, but I hope that you guy's can look at this, and the later chapters and see how far I have come in writing experience. :)_

_**Sept 28 UPDATE:** Soo... I'm about 4ish, 5 pages into the next chapter, but I really don't know how long you guy's want these chapters to be. Do you want me to wait about half a month, to a month (when I do start getting into the writing pattern, that'll be the update time) for longer chapters, or about a week/week and a half for shorter chapters? PM me with your answer, PLEASE. I will respond, no matter what! =D  
_

_Love and Laughter,  
Archangel._


	3. Regroup

_____"There are many worlds, but they share the same sky. One sky; One destiny."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**III. Regroup.**

* * *

_Going solo isn't going to help anyone but the hunters._

_As soon as you do find someone, stay with them._

_They will be your saving grace,_

_they will be your sanity._

* * *

I opened my eye's rather abruptly as I felt cold air rip open my eyelids and an unprecedented weight on my back. It felt like I was carrying a backpack, but at the same time, it felt like I was being lifted by the angelic wings of a hero. My heart sunk however, when I looked down and the situation dawned on me rather quickly.

I was falling at a very rapid pace to the canopy below. The air cut through my hair, tussling it. It ripped my eye's and mouth fully open making it hard to see and breath much, if not at all. Looking down to my shoulders, my now-watering eye's saw that a parachute had been strapped to me. Although different in appearance, I know the tag when I see one; and that red tag on the shoulder strap is quite obviously for a parachute.

Yanking the strap against the gale force took effort, but I was finally able to do it and not a moment too soon. The tree's began to magnify as they came closer, but as my chute deployed they bloomed in and out of focus as the strap yanked on my gut, siphoning all the air out of my lungs. Clenching the shirt on my chest, I heaved in and out trying to get some air back. As I descended into the canopy, I had to weave my legs right and left to avoid each and every pointed threat aimed at me. Lowering further and further, it's gets more difficult to evade each threat. Miniscule scratches along my calf and arms are the result of my strenuous effort. As I pass through twig after twig and dodge branch after branch, I start to think that it will be over as soon as I hit the ground. Pointed edges crack the surface of my skin all over and as I weave in and out of the foot wide trunks the ground closes nearer and nearer. A small piece of foliage smacked into my face causing me to shut my eye's. When I opened them again, a thick trunk was all I could see before I heard a loud crunching noise. Then, everything went dark, my hearing gradually drained, and I felt the same weightlessness as before, however ambivalent.

"I'm Deela Keiser. And you are...?" Deela said cheerfully, carrying her name with pride as she held her hand out to shake, which the stranger reciprocated reluctantly with a barely audible sigh.

"I'm Melina Mailer." The woman spat.

Her before rigid and renegade features turned soft and curious in surprise at something that Deela couldn't see.

"Woah... What is that?" Melina said, her eye's wider than her agape mouth.

"What is what?" Deela retorted.

"Look!" Melina said, spinning Deela around by the shoulder.

"I don't see anything." She replied, putting her hand over her eye, blocking out the sun.

Unfortunately for Melina, she saw the mysterious stranger as it was above the tree's, but she only turned Deela around after he was under the brush.

"Yeeeaaah... You're crazy, Melina

"No, shut up. I'm not crazy, _you_ are, and there was someone falling down there!" She shouted which opened Deela's eyes.

A soft grunt was Deela's own reply followed by the soft sound of depressing grass under her foot as she paid no mind to Melina and followed the sound of a crunch she heard not too far away. Slowly she climbed over the large trunk and walked towards the sound when she heard a harsh whisper in her ear. "Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?" Melina scolded and stalked up to her.

Deela had forgotten about Deela, ever since she lashed out of her, which she guessed it must've been something repressive and paid no mind to it. Although, she had thought that she wouldn't have any more of those happenings since they had disappeared for a long while. Maybe the landing here had resurfaced them.

"I'm going to find out what, or who, it was." She said, cocking her head to the side to get a better look ahead of her.

"Oh, well okay. I guess I'll come with you." Melina gave in, seeing that arguing here would be pointless and a waste of time.

Many long periods of silence shared between the two as the searched the surrounding tree's, but to no avail. The cause of the abrupt sound, and Melina's apparent craziness was nowhere to be found. They were searching all around the oasis, back and forth from where she had heard the sound to just random places that they would end up.

"Ugh," Melina sighed. "This is tiring. Hey, I've got an idea!" She exclaimed much to Deela's dismay.

"Hey, Melina. The sooner we find whatever it was, the sooner you can go rest." Was Deela's answer. _The sooner you can go jaggoff, _was her thought.  
"How about you keep searching, and I'll go rest up? Yeah, that sounds good." Melina called out and not even waiting for an answer, she walked off.

Deela sighed and stretched her back, thinking of just how Melina will get on her nerves in the future. She wanted to ditch that aggravating woman, but then her chances of survival would rapidly diminish.

As she was thinking, her head wondered up to the tree's above, staring out through the canopy. Many leaves created the shade that cascaded down upon her in blotches of dark green. The sun was, thankfully, not that hot, but not that cool. It was only going to get cooler as time passes. And as her stretch fulfilled it's purpose, she straightened out and saw a figure laying on the grass, shrouded in shadows. Deela jogged up to it cautiously, hiding behind the closest tree to the figure.

"H-hello...?" She asked, poking her head out behind the tree.

No response.

"Um.. Excuse me? Sir? Ma'am?" She continued with a wavering voice.

The figure on the ground suddenly whimpered and, even to Deela is sounded pretty pathetic.

"Hey. Come on, wake up." Deela said, poking him with her finger.

A soft grunt was her only response, or so she thought. "Ugh...Yes?" The noticeable masculine voice responded to Deela's pokes but raising his hands over his head. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

Deela stared at him in bewilderment. Here, there was someone who fell from the sky, through what looked to be a quite hard and thick forest canopy, and now he was asking if _he_ could help _her_?

"I think I should be asking you that..." Was the only thing she could muster up through her stupor.

The man tried to stand up, but instantly fell back down. He tried again, and this time Deela had his arm around her shoulder to help him up. "Heh. Thanks for that, miss." The mysterious man told her once he was standing.

"Yeah, no problem." She grunted as she helped move him into the sunlight to finally get a good look at him.

He had short, flaming red hair, obviously tussled from the rough ride down. Eye brows receding down near his green eye's, and had sun-tanned skin. His chest donned a white T-Shirt, void of words and adds, but a thick camouflage suit, that had a fair amount of scratches in it, hid it. Below that, he wore jeans that held a little less holes than the shirt. A little room to spare in them as they are tucked inside of his midnight-black boots. A combat knife is visible in his footwear via the bulge of the bottom of his pant leg.

"So... What's your name?" Deela asked after taking in his appearance.

"Oh. Please forgive me." He leaned against a tree to keep his balance and sooth his legs' injuries. "I'm Kurt Kier, and who might you be?"

"Oh," Deela looked at her feet in an embarrassed nature. "I'm Deela."

"Well, it's nice to make your acquaintance, Deela." Kurt said with a nod of the head.

A moment of silence shared between and they studied the forest and the ominous sounds it made.

"Do you think you're able to walk on your own now?" Deela asked, breaking the silence.

"Of course." He replied while inspecting himself. "They seem like just scratches, and nothing seems to be broken."

"But, what about your nose? It's bleeding profusely!" She exclaimed, waving her hands for emphasis.

"Don't worry about it, I probably just smacked in on something coming... down..." He trailed off, remembering why he was scratched and where he was, while wiping the blood off on a nearby leaf.

"Where are we anyway?" Kurt asked.

Deela gave him a sheepish look, before looking back towards the forest. "I don't exactly know. Melina thinks we're just trapped in some far-off forest, but I doubt it. The sun hasn't moved since we got here and it this forest seems way to dense to even exist in the country I live in."

"Who's Melina?" Kurt questioned, a quizzical look on his face.

"Oh, she's... Well, why don't I just take you to her?" Deela spoke colloquially. "C'mon." She smiled and grabbed his forearm, dragging Kurt with her down to the Oasis where Melina was waiting.

"So, what's this 'Melina' like?" Kurt asked curiously.

She chose her words carefully. "Oooh, you're going to _love_ her. She's one of a kind, I'll tell you that."

"Seems interesting." Was his only reply.

"Oh, yeah. Trust me, you won't forget 'er."

After a short couple minute walk, they were back at the ever familiar Oasis and it's signature still water. Melina was softly sleeping on her back beside the pond. Her hands were clasped on her chest, her mouth in a deep, set scowl like she was practicing to make people uncomfortable.

Deela and Kurt walked up to her quietly and sat beside her. Deela leaned over Melina to see if she was awake and, seeing that she wasn't, she shook her to life.

"Mmm... Whaaa...?" She groaned drowsily. "Deela...?" She opened her eye's, but shut them again because the sun was blinding her. Slowly, she sat up and rubbed the sand out of her eye's.

"Welcome back to the world, sunshine." Kurt spoke from the left side of Deela.

"Huh? Who are you?" Melina snapped.

"He was the thing you saw fall out of the sky, Melina."

"Oh, I see. So, you found him on the ground, or in the tree, and you thought you should just bring him back here to me?" Deela couldn't believe it. The bitch was a cold, brash natured woman from waking up to going to sleep.

"He seemed like a nice guy, and we need to wash out his wounds or else they'll get infected." Deela tried reasoning with her.

"Infected with _what?_ We're not even on _Earth_, Deela!" She shouted. "What the hell could infect him!"

"We don't know what we're dealing with. It'd be better to be safe than sorry." Deela replied, emphasizing with her hands as usual.

"Well, if everything's not as it seems, couldn't he get infected by the _water_ in this pond?!" Melina countered, to which Deela backed off in response; she knew she was right.

"She's right, Deela..." Kurt spoke up finally. "But, Melina, if we don't do something, Deela will also be right. They _will_ be infected eventually, it's inevitable."

Melina sighed in response and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Yes, yes, fine. What do you propose we do then, Kurt?"

"Well," he reached in his pocket and pulled out some polysporin. "I have some polysporin... So..."

Deela and Melina both facepalmed and said in unison, "and you waited until now to bring it out?"

The resonating sound of a sheepish laugh was their only answer.

* * *

Unbeknownst to any of the three members of the ragtag group, something far above them had it's eyes set on them. This mysterious being was hidden out of sight, camouflaged into the tree's by it's cloaking device. Surveying the heterogeneous group, he switches his helmets sight from normal to heat, to biometric, and back to normal. With a series of throaty and guttural clicks, he slips away back into the forest to wait for a better opportunity.

Kurt jolted his head upwards and looked towards where he had just heard a sound, not one of the multifarious, mundane sounds like birds chirping or something of the sort, but a rather unambiguous growl of sorts.

"Kurt, what's up?" Melina asked suddenly, breaking him out of his trance.

"Oh, nothing," He replied. "I just thought I had heard something up there..."

"Well, it's probably nothing important or hazardous." She exclaimed.

"Yeah," Kurt agreed. "you're probably right."

"It's me... Of course I'm right." Melina added in her veritably well practiced snob accent.

Deela shook her head at the pointless, last minute comment, then looked to see if she could see anything that Kurt missed. After a silent moment passed, she decided that nothing was up there and they were just paranoid being out in the... wherever here is.

"So, Kurt." Deela started. "Not that I want to stir up any bad memories or anything but, what were you doing before you arrived here?"

"Nothin' much, to be honest. I was just relaxing because I was to be deployed to the front lines in 3 days. "Kurt spoke matter-of-factly and put away the polysporin.

Kurt stood up, testing his leg and, noticing that it felt veritably better, took a little hop to get the feeling back.

"Hmm... Must've just been asleep, or numb or something." He shrugged, sitting back down in the circle near the oasis.

"You were to be deployed? Ooo, that means you're in the army, right?" Melina asked the ever-obvious question.

"Yes..." Kurt's reply seemed to be quiet and trailed off.

"That means you're strong, and you _know_ how to survive, right?" She questioned.

Deela knew where she was going with this and couldn't help but be amused; Melina was trying to secure her survival in this godforsaken land, whereas Deela has already adopted the ubiquitous philosophy of 'I'll deal with whatever is thrown at me'.

"Of course! Back in basic, we were thrown into a situation just like this with a small squad, 4 people. We were to survive off the land for however long it took us to get back to base camp." Kurt boasted, bringing Deela out of her thoughts at to the scenario at hand.

Deela couldn't shake her thoughts entirely however, for they came right back to her. _What if this isn't like his Basic Training? What if we're to survive for the sake of our lives, no rescue in the __foreseeable future? What if we have to make our own rescue? _She thought coldly and worriedly. _What if Kurt really did see someone...?_

* * *

**A/N:** _Apologies on the short chapter, but I've decided to make chapters shorter than my previous (8 thousand words) so that these come out more eloquently. So, as of this chapter on, they'll be at least a minimum of two thousand words. I really hope you're okay with it, if you're not than it's only another reason to review, eh? :D  
Rate and Review! (They'll come out even FASTER!)_


	4. The Truth?

___"__These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real. There's just too much that time cannot erase."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**IV. The Truth?**

* * *

_Expect the unexpected,_

_nothing is taken for granted._

_Make yourself scare, and do not, under any_

_circumstances, expose yourself._

* * *

"Come on guy's," Kurt rushed. "it's not that much further, I can see the cliff up ahead!"

"We're girls, Kurt." Melina said plainly.

"Whatever, it's general!" He said over his shoulder.

"Yeah, whatever. We're coming, just slow down." Melina huffed as she wasn't used to long and treacherous hikes.

It had been 2 earth days (according to her watch) since all three of them met. Since then, they had been living off of the rations that Kurt had ever-so-sneakily stolen from his comrades during their last training exercise. However disgusting they tasted, they were sustenance. They slept in the shelter of the Shade, up high on the bark so that no wild animals would track them in their sleep. They eventually decided that staying there and waiting for help was useless as it proved no one was coming and they were almost out of food. So they did the only other option they could lucidly think of; Explore the forest, see what they could find, see what they could use to help them survive. A couple hours after they decided this, Kurt, being in the lead as the two girls fell behind, noticed an opening far ahead of them in the forest. He asked them if they should go there to scout out any possible food and/or shelter. With a quick vote, they were off towards it.

Presently, they were not too far from it anymore and Kurt has his combat knife out, hacking at outgrown branches and leaves, leaving a clear path for the two ladies who followed in toe.

"So, Melina. What's your story?" Deela asked, attempting to make some idle chitchat.

"It's nothing that special, nor your business." She scoffed. "But, if you _must_ know, I was born and raised in a family of 6. I learned to fend for myself and take when I had the chance. We weren't that rich, so I often found myself...'securing' food for myself, leaving scraps for the others."

"Woah, Never knew you'd have such a taxing past weighing down on yah." Kurt called out towards Melina.

"Yeah well..." She shrugged.

"But, why did you only leave scraps for the others, why didn't you 'secure' them food either?" Deela asked quizzically.

"You gotta do what you gotta do, toots."

"Seems rather rude..." Deela mutterred.

Melina stopped walking and simply stared at Deela, baffled. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"Oh, nothing..." Deela said, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck with a sheepish smile.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

A brief moment of silence past through the ragtag group as no one knew what to say that didn't seem like it's only purpose _was_ to break the awkward silence. Finally, Kurt spoke up. "Oh? Mine? You want to know about mine?" He was making conversation with himself almost too confidently. "Well, sure! I'll spill." A wide smile spread across his lips.

"I joined the military after graduating high school at 18. After passing Basic Training in the top 75 of my garrison," He winked. "I went home to my parents to relax before my first mission." He stopped for a brief moment to catch his breath and leaped over a fallen down tree trunk.

"You see, I had an older brother who stole all the attention from my parents. However," Kurt turned around and winked at both of the two ladies. "upon my return from Basic Training, they gave me more attention like I was slowly transforming into my brother." Kurt said proudly.

"One day, I got a phone call from the Military saying I was to be shipped out in two weeks for my first tour of duty; naturally, I was excited. I told everyone I knew, my parents, my friends, even my enemies! But 3 days before I was to be shipped out, I ended up here..."

Deela looked up and saw Kurt looking out off of the rugged and rather sketchy cliffside. "Wherever here is."

"What d'you mean? We're just in some random forest, Kurt. Stop acting like it's such a big deal." Melina spoke up.

"No, Melina." He replied.

"What do you mean, _no_?!" She hollered louder.

"Just shut up and get over here. Actually _open_ your eye's and you'll see what I mean." Kurt countered.

He had another snap ready for her if she dared to even speak up, but she seemed to be in a trance as soon as she emerged from the jungley thicket.

"Hey, Melina, what're you staring..." Deela started but is cut off when she, herself, arrives at the cliff face.

The 3 people stood near the edge of a rustic coloured cliffside that looked down into what they had thought would be a canyon, but even that seemed like a weird occurrence seeing as there was a jungle beside it. What they saw, however, quickly explained why everyone's motions, including speech, came to a complete and abrupt cessation.

The 'cliff side' actually turned out to be the edge of a floating island. Looking out, they could only see two more floating islands, each with it's own distinct land mass, shape, and environment varying from dusty deserts to florescent forests to leaking lakes flowing over the edge of them. Kurt leaned over the edge slightly and whistled. There was no visible planet crust, only a blue hue that darkened as it grew further away. Deela looked up to try and find the sun, but she was saddened some more when she found the previously mentioned setting sun on the horizon.

"C'mon." Her voice was cold and stale. "The suns about to set."

Without another word, she started trekking back into the forest.

_It's just like before, _she thought. _There is no way back home, there is no way to find my friends. I'm trapped in an eternal solitude of which no one knows..._ Deela was rapidly spiralling into another state of depression. She knew she had to keep the depression away, which was why she was walking through the woods; Exercise is the best remedy for depression. _No; I refuse to think that,_ She went on in her head._ Where there's a will, there's a way and I refuse to give up hope. If it means that I can be happy at least one more time, I will endure this roadblock, push on. I'll do it for happiness, for me, and for Emily. _

"Oi!" Kurt called from far behind her. "Where you headed in such a hurry? We gotta stick together!"

Deela stole a glance over her shoulder and saw Kurt chasing after her, Melina close behind, jumping over branches and combing leaves out of the way. Deela didn't want to talk to anyway right now, she didn't know who these people were and frankly, she didn't care. All that was on her mind right now was how to survive this wretched fate. She was busy thinking about this when she noticed that Kurt and Melina had finally caught up to her. Deela's previously awkward and shy demeanour had vanished and was replaced by a self-determinism. One that meant she _was_ going to survive and she would help everyone else endure, even if it meant walking through hell to do so.

"Why'd you run off like that Dee?" Melina asked, panting.

A few silent moments went by, indicating that she wasn't going to answer. "Aaaaanywaaaay..." Kurt broke the silence while scratching the back of his neck idly. "If we're going to survive, we need the 3 necessities: Food, Water, and Shelter."

Deela cringed ever so slightly. She felt like she was living in a shell, completely numb to the outside features of her body, but still felt stupid for not remembering the basic necessities of survival. The revelation of being isolated in, what could quite possibly be a different planet than earth, had rocked her to her core but she was afraid to admit it. Despite the utter shellshocking news she recently acquired, she replied. "Yes. We can't go back to the oasis though I'm afraid. Whatever Kurt saw there, it might be violent and it might have friends." The last word was like acid on her tongue.

"Okay, sure. But there was _no one_ there" Melina interjected.

"I'm not taking chances." Deela shot back calmly.

Melina's facial expression quickly morphed into a scowl as she cocked her hip and rested her hand on it. "Lead the way, ." She said cockily.

Meanwhile, Kurt, who was silent for their argument, spoke up. "We need to get to higher ground, we can see a lot more from there."

Everyone nodded.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the group, they were being watched stealthily by none other than the creature that Kurt saw. Sadly, both Deela and Melina don't fully believe him, and remain skeptical about the entire 'violent being coming to hunt us' idea. Why would they believe it anyway? The idea itself is completely absurd, not to mention the delivery method that Kurt claims to be the truth. 'A humanoid figure, crouching on the branches, shrouded in shadow's and eyeing their every move', he had claimed. It really wasn't a surprise that Deela and Melina remain skeptical at his accusations.

However, contrary to what Deela and Melina believe, there really was something out there, and it was hunting them down. The thrill of the hunt was the entire purpose of their existence, and the rag tag group is unknowingly giving it to them. The small group of three 'hunters' crowded near the edge of the island in the tree's that were close by. The 'hunters' had their active-camouflage activated so that they risked absolutely no chance of being detected for the time being. They would want the ragtag group to get prepared, they wanted them to be heavily invested into survival and enduring the natural causes of live and this planet so that the hunt would have more meaning to the 'hunters' and that the trio of survivors would have more incentive and meaning to stay alive. The 'hunters' wanted the three of them to know each other and create bonds of which they could toy with, and their loyalty to one another, in toe. That being said, they knew that all they needed to do was wait it out. If they wanted a satisfying game and, by extension, hunt, they would need to wait.

So, with a glance over at the others, they hastily followed the survivors as they jogged to higher ground.

* * *

The eerie silence of the forest was lost upon the tenacious trio as they strolled aimlessly looking for any high and easily accessible point of land. They were looking for their base necessities of living. Shelter, Water, and Food and, so far, having no luck whatsoever. Minutes went by, possibly hours; Time easily blurs when days suddenly become up to, and possibly exceeding, double the amount of the usual time. Ever since they left the 'back-to-reality-cliff' as they called it (because it ripped them out of their delirious delusion of this being some optical illusion or technologically advanced and expansive lab and they were to act as lab rats), they had made little progress in the forest. They simply kept wondering around in a straight line hoping to find some kind of lookout or cove, perhaps an inlet that would let them fortify and keep as their temporary home. However, this far into the trip, they were running low on rations and had no such luck finding Water, Food, or Shelter.

_We need to find something to sustain us or else we're doomed._ Deela shivered at the thought. Dying without putting up a fight. Dying without being able _to_ put up a fight. The mere thought of that concept had Deela squeeze her hands tightly into fists. Even if it meant they had to live on berries and bugs, she would try her damndest to make sure that she does not go down without a fight. She would try hard for herself since she didn't care about Kurt, nor Melina. With how they act towards her and towards one another, she can easily see a two-faced personality among her. Deela was almost sure it was Melina, but, then again, it may just be interpersonal and first-impressions bias acting against her. Melina may turn out to be a nice person after all. For all she knew, she could become the renegade one of the group. As it stands currently, however, she was the determined one. No one else knew what they were really in for, both psychologically and physically. Deela was the only one who knew the trauma of isolation and is going to make sure that they all understand it sooner or later. _But, for now,_ She decided. I_t's best if we just continue along to find any of the 3 sections of sustainability._

Deela made a quick check over her shoulder to make sure that Kurt and Melina were still hot on her tail and, as she expected, they were. Snapping her head back to face forwards, she found something she really did not expect to see in a forest of this magnitude. She honestly did _not_ expect this. At all.

Deela peeled back several leaves from the outcropping of branch's at stared in awe at the sight in front of her; A log cabin. There wasn't a clearing around it, as she would've expected, but instead vines, plants, and branch's were growing through the windows and pushing away few of the rotting wooden planks. Tree's and plants grew right next to it, it seemed as though the Cabin grew there along with the wildlife. There was no light emanating from the cabin itself, there was only the sunlight reflected off of the waterlogged leaves.

"Seeing how the sun is almost down for the night and we have no where else set up..." Deela motioned toward the ancient wooden cabin. Kurt and Melina open a hole in the leaves with their hands as Deela spoke. "I present to you, 'La cabine de l'émerveillement'..." She paused for effect. "The Cabin of Wonders."

"Woah..." Kurt stared in bewilderment at the wooden building ahead of them. "Wait. You know french?"

"J'ai étudié le français à l'école." Deela replied proudly.

"Show off..." Deela and Kurt glared at Melina painfully.

Melina began walking towards the cottage-esque building, rubbing her hand silently on the tree's as she past them. Deela and Kurt looked at each other in confusion, blinked once, and them trotted off after Melina.

"I dunno... It looks quite ominous." Kurt stated in a scared tone once they reached the door.

"It's either this, or sleep outside again." He looked unfazed by the ordeal of sleeping outside, so she elaborated. "With the cold." Still nothing. "And the wild animals."

Kurt merely brandished his combat knife and wiped the side against his sleeve, smiling.

While Deela and Kurt were conversing, Melina silently opened the door (as there was no lock), surprised that it didn't creak, and walked inside the midnight black room. She could hardly see anything at all, even though sun was reflecting off of the outside foliage. She fumbled around on the wall to find a light switch of sorts but ultimately failed. She sauntered to the middle of the room, her white boots gliding on the grass that were in the state of ontogenesis through the planks. She noticed that the windows had been shattered, but there was only one tree branch growing right through one of the several windows in the room. _They must've been recently shattered,_ She thought, picking up a large shard of glass. Handling it carefully, she angled it to refract light off of the shard into the room, creating a makeshift, stationary, torch. She pointed the light around the room and was surprised at how large the inside seemed to be. However, they are on a different planet that's air consistency is equivalent to that of the Earth, so anything is possible, right?

The main room contained a red rug with a Jamaican looking design in the middle of the room, flanked by two wooden arm chairs with pelts of an unknown animal covering them. If you were walking through the door, you would see the arm chairs towards the left, seeming angled towards the left wall where a fireplace was engraved into the wood. _Strange,_ She pondered. _I didn't see a chimney..._

"Will you two shut up and get in here already?!" Melina hollered from inside, still holding the makeshift torch. "I am _not_ sleeping outside again!"

This elicited a small giggle from her two compatriots, despite their best stifling attempts.

"Alright, alright. We're coming." Kurt called into the pitch black room.

"Where's that door lead to?" Deela asked once she was inside and Melina shone her light around the room.

"Which door?" She asked, trying to angle the light at where Deela was pointing.

Straight from the door and across the room, was another wooden sliding door that didn't appear to have a lock on it, just like the front door. Putting down the shard of glass and grabbing her very own combat knife, she quietly made her way towards the other door while the others stood idly near the door with baited breath. "Hello?" She asked coldly while wrapping on it.

Deela gasped and stood straighter when a sudden thump was heard on the opposite side of the door. "M-maybe we s-sh-should leave..." Kurt breathed out quickly, obviously scared.

Just then, another knock sounded on the door, causing Deela to snap her head up from Kurt to Melina. "Knock it off, Melina. At least wait a bit!" She scoffed.

"That wasn't me, Deela..." Melina spoke with a wavering voice, backing away from the door.

"Than wha..." Deela coughed suddenly. "Do you smell that?" She, along with Kurt and Melina plugged their nose with their fingers.

"Yeah, I do." Came Kurts distorted voice

Melina crouched down and moved back towards the door, braving the smell. She flipped her blade over in her hand once and motioned for Kurt to come up and help her. "Kurt," She whispered, seeing as how he didn't see her motion. "Get over here, bring your knife."

Kurt did as she asked and primed his blade, taking refuge behind Melina. She was about to berate him, but decided against it.

"Ready?" She asked him as he took his last clean breath through his shirt filter.

"Yup." He replied readily.

"Let's do it."

Melina ripped the door open and her eyes opened wide, shocked. As soon as the sliding door opened fully, the front door that they had come in through slammed shut. It thrashed shut with such force that the knob of the door unhitched from the tumbler.

Everyone gasped and turned around, knives in hand as they looked expectantly at where they thought Deela was. She took a hint and tried to open the door, just in case, but was rewarded with the knob aimlessly twirling in her hands. Shock and distress filled all of their faces as they turned around slowly to yet another ghostly thud from somewhere else in the house.

Now as if they had enough to worry about with the threat of death on the precipice of fate's chain of events, they were now locked in an eerie cabin in the middle of a forest in which escape was only a dream.


	5. Corrupt Chimera's

"_I'm so tired of being here. Suppressed by all my childish fears."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**V. Corrupt Chimera's.**

* * *

_You may get scared- no. _

_You **will** get scared._

_But you must not, under any circumstances,_

_Give up._

* * *

The dilapidated cabin was locked, but seemingly not from either side. Tree's growing through the wood, melding them together and blocking out all possible lighting other than the windows which were broken and splashed around the floor. A slight trickle of sunlight came through the window and entered into the room where the three compatriots resided. Their eyes are opened wide with a shocked expression revealing their features. A dull thump was heard on the other side of the door that Melina was currently leaning against. She backed away almost instantaneously. Shock of the impossible noise salient on everyone's mind, horror and fear the second most prevalent.

They all looked at each other, despite the pitch blackness that was the room, and they knew what everyone else was thinking. 'What...?'

They had stumbled upon this cabin in the middle of the woods of some godforsaken planet and, following a brief argument, they stumbled inside only for the door to snap shut behind them, locking them in and sealing their fate. The room that they currently resided in at the moment is a typical 'living room' type layout with a couple of (pelted) chairs, a red (Jamaican style) rug, and a fireplace in front of them all. However, that was not their prime area of focus for the moment.

As they were about to open the door to continue on into the 'Cabin of Wonders', they heard a scratching sound coming from the other side, following a loud thump that resonated throughout the living room (which they were now thinking how misappropriate the name really was). Melina, by now, had retreated back a mere couple inches with her combat knife still held in her hand, while Kurt's military training had kicked in and he instantly crouched lower and held his position with knife in hand. They had to admit and respect that having a member of the United States' military with them, a marine, would be beneficial and advantageous in the long run- even now he's showing his worth.

Seconds, even minutes passed since that unfaithful (and quite possibly belief-breaking) moment. No one had dared move a muscle once the initial scare was over in fright that the person in the other room would find them and they all silently agreed that that would _not_ be the best thing to happen to them right now. Especially if they wanted to survive this entire other-wordly encounter.

"What...?" Kurt had spoken through the mysterious tranquility of the quiet zen.

No one wanted to speak, but every one was thinking the exact same thing. _Someone's alive._

Deela gestured towards the door, but in the pitch black, she realized, it was pointless. No one could see each other, they could be surrounded or confronted with people right now and they would not even know the better of it. Thankfully, Melina took the initiative after finally recovering from the panic and took the opportunity to somber up to the door.

As soon as she laid her clammy on that wilting, wooden doorknob, a soft luminescence emitted from beyond which, at last, allowed them to see around them albeit very limited vision. Melina gave Kurt and Deela an adventurous gaze before nodding to each of them and receiving a nod back respectively. The doorknob turned under her grasp ever so slowly. It creaked loudly and finally, she brushed the door open with an ominous groan. Melina peered inside the ajar hole, and saw nothing but a lonesome lantern sitting on what seemed to be an average kitchen table.

She opened the door wider and was greeted with a fairly average cabin's kitchen. There was a wooden island off to the right with bar stools propped up against it. Beside that, there were wooden cupboards and drawers (as indicated by the grain and knots visible). Off to the other side was a small campfire like set-up that was probably used to cook the food and boil the water. No one was to be found in the room, which was quite odd because they heard the groan from in this room. _I guess he just left._ Melina thought placidly.

"C'mon guy's," She said. "The coast is clear."

Her only reply was a series of (two) grunts.

Melina waved her hand forward and the others followed her into the dimly lit room. Once in the room, they spread out with a sigh. Melina and Kurt took two of the bar stools near the island and plopped down while Deela started to walk over to the drawers.

"So... Creepy, eh?" Kurt started.

"Yeah, quite." Deela returned cursorily.

"Did anyone else hear the groan back there, or was that just me?" Melina asked wondrously.

"No, don't worry. You're not going crazy yet." Kurt replied with the ease that only comes with a calm and collected demeanour.

Melina only started at him in response until Deela broke the eerie silence. "There's nothing here." She said unbelieving, as she started throwing the cupboards and drawers open like they were nothing but air.

"Wha'dyou... Oh."

She was right, they found out. Even though there are a lot of cupboards, drawers and cubbies alike to put pots, pans, or any cooking utensils, none of them were filled. Half of that may be due to the fact that they were on a different planet than Earth, but even then there should be some cooking utensils akin to Earth... shouldn't there?

Further investigation into the kitchen revealed that the owner or maker of this house had probably evacuated or was rescued by someone and thought it wise to bring all of their belongings to wherever they were headed. Unfortunately, for Deela, Kurt, and Melina, that left them without any means of preparing, or even _eating,_ their food. Kurt's rations running dangerously low at the count of one, they knew that food was the very next thing on their priority list after they're done exploring this cabin. After all, food may be in some other room of this spooky place. _This cabin doesn't seem that large from the outside after all, so it can't have more than three or four rooms to it_, they reasoned.

The dim lighting from the lantern was now making everyone look over their shoulders periodically. Paranoia would soon set it, no doubt, if they didn't make sure that they were alone and the light from the lantern would only make the setting worse.

Eventually, after much time spent lurking into the one creepy room of the cabin, they decided to split up and try to look for the food inside of their quaint house. Melina was chosen to search the pantry, Kurt was chosen for the living room, and Deela volunteered to investigate the one bedroom.

"Meet up in half an hour if you don't find anything, alright?" Deela asked, but it was more of a statement that a question.

"Unless you give up and just come back here... Than, I guess, I'll see you back here." Kurt responded in an upbeat manner, but paused his thought process and put a finger on his chin.

"Who's gonna take that?" He questioned finally, gesturing to the lantern.

"No one." Deela spoke coldly. "It'll be here for us when we get back. The other rooms should have, either enough light from this, or one of their own. If they do have a light of their own, mind you- Leave it there!"

Melina nodded her acceptance and Kurt mumbled a barely audible affirmative.

* * *

The pantry was the closest room to the kitchen with it almost being in the kitchen and all. Melina moved cautiously with a purpose towards the daunting door that could contain the key to their very survival. She crossed her fingers in the dark and opened the sliding door with a creak akin to an old house. Inside, it was almost pitch black, other than the light from the kitchen lantern. With the sliver of light she had, Melina saw that the pantry had quite a depth to it. It was at least 5 feet wide, she guessed. Planks of neatly chopped wood lined the edges, but there was no sight of food whatsoever. However, in a fearless stride, she stepped inside of the pantry to get a closer look.

The door whooshed shut ever so quietly behind her. She froze in place, unable to move as her light source was cut from her and she was forced to see in the dark with her own naked eye; a feat impractical no matter how many carrots you eat. A whisper in her ear snapped her out of her stupor as she tried to scream, but nothing would come out. As if her vocal cords had seized up, she couldn't produce a sound. Melina whirled around, now scared quite thoroughly and grabbed onto the side of the sliding door. Her paranoid fears were soon confirmed as the door would not budge no matter how hard she stressed to pull the door open. A cold sweat starting to become more and more prevalent on her back and forehead, she wiped her clammy palms on her hands and pressed her back to the door. _Maybe I can break it down._ Melina thought in a hurried frenzy.

She put all of her weight in one push and, to her surprise (but not to the surprise of those deep seeded inner fears of her psyche), the door to the pantry did not budge. In fact, she rebounded off of it, further into the darkness. She silently screamed as her vocal cords did not seem to want to work yet. Her eye's darted around in the darkness, her mind twisting and contorting all of the blurry images into horrid memoirs from her past. Melina's veritably corrupt mind was starting to attack her with a cacophony of gurgles and abhorrent chimera's stretching the figures into her worst fears. They were staring at her, they all were. Every single detail she could single out from the rest eventually became one of them as well. It was only a matter of time for when she would become one too. The spectral darkness that was radiating off of their bodies and the malice in their eye's starting to bore into her own. Her fight or flight instinct jumbled up into a freezing one. Melina didn't know what to do. The demons of her past were haunting her, and the spirits of this world were, indeed doing their fair share on her sanity as well.

Melina did the only thing she thought possible at the time, the only thing she had control of at the moment within her conscious mind. She shut her eye's.

* * *

Deela had wondered out of the opposite door of the pseudo living room, the only other door in the kitchen, to find the bedroom. It seemed as though this cabin only held a small limited number of rooms. The bedroom was dimly lit, the only lighting was emitted from a small candle on a bedside table. From what Deela could make out, the bed had a comforter completely made out of stitched grass and moss. The floor was all hard wood with some roots poking out from under the rotting planks. Deela made sure that the door behind her was open, just in case anything should happen to anyway, and walked inside the room. Her feet made contact with the hard wooden with a satisfying thump.

There wasn't much in the room besides the bed. Though, Deela noticed that the bed seemed slightly elevated from the floor. She knelt down and peered under the bed but couldn't see anything but a dark void of vision. Believing that nothing was under there, she stood back up and stretched her back, but abruptly came to a cessation when the candle in front of her was blown out. Her eye's narrowed and a bead of sweat threatened to loosen itself from her pours. _Wha..._

Something prickly molested her ankle's and elicited a sharp shriek. Her eye's scanned feverishly around the floor to see what had done it, but she saw nothing but a stray root residing near her foot. She staggered backward, but tripped on the root. Deela fell flat on her back, crawling backwards towards the door without avail. She screamed out, but no one answered her. She tried again, but heard no response. She was all _alone_ again.

The darkness was slowly swallowing her sanity and ripping her from reality and consciousness alike. _What? What's happening? Why can't I move?_ Her frenzied mind screamed out despite her body not responding. Her muscles and nerves unresponsive as terror set into the inner reaches of her heart.

* * *

Kurt reached the pseudo living room in a bit of a stupor. Rummaging through his mind about how he had gotten here, who these two people he had teamed up with really were, and how they were going to be rescued. Not everything can be solved in a short walk however, so he cut his inner monologue off at the source and started to see the 'living room' again for the first time.

_Food... Food... Food..._ He repeated verbatim in his mind. Looking first over the rug he noticed a flickering light that wasn't there before. Or so, he thought wasn't there before. A gentle warmth spread up his flank and he noticed that the fire was burning now.

_Strange... That wasn't 'on' before we opened the door. I guess something hit it from outside._ He wondered. Kurt paid little to no more attention on that train of thought since he did not want to know what 'thing' from outside would've lit the fire in the cabin without even opening or unlocking the door. Just to be safe though, he wandered over to the front door of the cursed cabin and tried turning it. But to his surprise, the knob burned his hand as soon as they met each other. His hand reeled back with steam emitted from the door knob.

_Okay, now this is creepy._ Kurt thought, still skeptical that anything was really happening and that this was just a dream.

He returned to the kitchen to run some water over his hand, just in case it would leave a burn, but instead he found the door to the kitchen closed when he left it wide open. Thinking it was just the draft from the broken window on the other side of the room, he opened it and walked through to the sink shaped item which was really just a water pump situated near the right corner of the island. Unfortunately, when he grasped it and pumped, no water spurted from the nozzle. _Great. Now we have shelter, but no water or food... I hope the others are doing better than I._

He let go of the pump leisurely while holding onto the thought. Moving to the left, he dismissed the pantry door fading away into the wall to be just his imagination. Shaking his head free of the rapidly closing in insanity, he scooted across the room and back to the pseudo living room to continue his search. He walked through to the room with no trouble at all, excluding a small trip from a branch that seemed to come out from no where. Thinking nothing of it, he half jogged, half walked into his objective room and started searching. _First place of business..._ He thought while scanning the rather large area, _are the chairs._

The pelt looked like nothing earthly to Kurt, instead it looked like an arctic wolf pelt but dyed with purple and orange instead of white, gray and brown. Kurt picked up the pelt to examine it, but instantly regretted it. Underneath the pelt rested a neatly tucked away bone necklace. _This cannot be good..._ His psyche said to him as the hair on the back of his neck began to stand up and the ever to ubiquitous feeling of someone watching him suddenly became a reality.

* * *

**A/N:** _Hiya! It's been a while, eh? Well, anyway. I'm just here to tell you that I'm taking up the NaNoWriMo challenge that I'm sure you've heard of.  
-If you haven't, it's a challenge/contest to write a 50,000 word novel, or 50,000 words for a novel, from start to finish all in one month!_

_Keep in mind though, I will still be on the website, I just won't be writing any of No Man's Land until NaNoWriMo is over. I'm going to have to write at the LEAST 2,000 words per day. And that's stretching my capabilities. This chapter, I wrote it in one day and it seems extremely rushed. Though, overall, I'm happy with each ending segment._

_So, don't expect a lot, if any, updates for me in November. I hope this will suffice...  
...I'm evil... Just thought I should add that. I know I'm evil for this cliffhanger, but hey... Why not? :D_

**December 1st, UPDATE:** _So, now that November (and NaNoWriMo) is over, I am returning to this story. I'm honoured to tell you all, whether or not you care, that I did complete it. I, myself, wrote 50,506 words in one month. It's not the best word count, but hey, I tried.  
__Note that I'm still not done the novel, so I'll be working on it and No Man's Land sporadically. Though, I doubt it's good enough to publish, so I'm not going to say anything like 'Hey, look for it in stores!' because it _won't _be there._

_However, if there is one good thing that a month of social solitude provided me with is that pumping out 2,500 words a day is possible for myself. So, once I get some plot of No Man's Land figured out, expect chapters to be a touch more frequent than once a month (I hope anyway...)  
_

_I hope you all still love me the same way I love you. :)_

**December 7th, UPDATE:** _Started work (finally) on chapter six. Updated my profile, and added a cover image to the picture. Let's see how my lucidity coincides with my coherency while I write at near-midnight..._


	6. The Fabricated Fallacy Of Fortitude

_"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another..."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**VI. The Fabricated Fallacy Of Fortitude.**

* * *

_I've had my share of fights here already._

_Some with allies, some not._

_Either way,_

_Win._

* * *

Kurt's ear was the first thing to succumb to movement after the hair on the back of his neck stood up rimrod. His thumb brushed over the worn bone necklace as if he were dusting it off. The light from the lamp barely illuminated the room, but with the reflections from it and the sun outside it became somewhat visible.

His hair seemed to burn needles into his scalp and, soon, he had a cold sweat dripping from his back followed by a grown by the seemingly old floorboards across the room. His head swung over his shoulder to take a glance at who was there, but couldn't find anyone except the blackened backdrop of the unseen corner.

His thumb gently caressed the object in his hands once more. The rough edges of the bone prickled on his thumbprint but it was barely felt by the solider. The trinket, the flaming red head noticed, appeared to be a necklace in shape. Peering over his shoulder again to double check that it was only his mind playing a trick on the poor guy, Kurt shifted his weight and alligned the trinket with the sun ray adjacent to him. The small streak of shining visibility identified that it was actually an almost ceremonial bracelet, not a necklace at all. It had polished brown orbs circling the black string that binded the objects together. At the head, or what Kurt identified as the head, was a tooth of some mammal that he hoped he never has to run into while on this planet. It was curved like the ubiquitous bracelets that one can find on populated beaches on Earth. The part where the tooth differed was the inside of the tooth. The place where it curved inward was jagged at strict forty-five degree angles.

Kurt grazed his fingers over the jagged points, pricking himself sharply. He ripped his finger backwards with a sharp inhale that was suppopsed to mask his pain. A tiny droplet of blood slipped from the tip of his forefinger onto the pelted rug beneath. "Gah, piss!" He shouted in a hushed tone before he looked over his shoulder with great alacrity, checking to see if his brief exclamation 'woke' anything up behind him or anywhere else in the house.

He strained his ear listening for sounds, but all he could hear was the hushed moans and heavy breaths taken from near the kitchen. He guessed it was Melina that was done her run, or just lifting something heavy in the pantry to get further in. Ultimately shrugging it off, he peered down at the liquid crimson to find it seeping into the funny coloured pelt, distorting the colours even further and staining the material.

He heard the groan of the wooden floorboards again and quickly turnede aboutface. He peered into the corner with a questioning glance. One that you don't get from simply not knowing something, but rather one you would get from knowing that something is off and it's on the tip of your tongue, yet you cannot place it.

The room seemed brighter to his eyes. Maybe he just got used to the dark, but he doubted the psyche suggestion instantly. It couldn't have gotten that bright within that short amount of time from that simply excuse. No, this was something else. It was then that he noticed an unfimiliar ray of seemingly pure white light through the wall. Kurt shifted his gaze horizontally and found the words that his tongue had been seeking for all along. The door was unlocked. There was a bright light from the admittedly colossal moon up above introducing itself in the cottage through the questionably opened door. _Why is this door opened _now_ of all times? _He wondered curiosly as his hand ran over the bone trinket once more. Suddenly, the door slammed shut once more.

Kurt's eyebrows peeked wondering what the strange phenomena could be caused by. He idly ran his hand over the the chisled bone on the polished bracelet that lay dormant in his hands and the door flew open again. With his free hand pummeling his forehead with a open hand, he had figured out the key to their departure.

Trusting himself with it, he stuck the charm in his pocket and stood back up. The sun's light reflected off of the moon brightly which illuminated almost every crevice in the room with it's iridiscence.

The light showed everything, from the pelted, circular rug he was standing upon to the nice wooden planked floorboards that covered the rest of the veritably small cottage.

The shining pure light crafted shadows that rested in soft figured behind the two arm chairs in the room. Kurt's field of vision was shifted when he turned his head towards the fireplace. The stone placings in each groove was semi-symmetrical which only made Kurt wonder how the person who built this cabin had crafted stone out of the tools that he made from the very Earth- or dirt, rather. He found the texture of it to be not unlike sandstone from home when he brushed his hand over the sides. The fireplace didn't emit any heat which meant that it was not used recently. The person who build the cottage had moved out a long time ago, leaving only the materials and tools that he, or she, could not bring with him. Kurt moved forward toward the hallway just outside the door that leads into the kitchen. A tingling sensation struck his skin once his stepped into the seemingly divine moonlight. He stepped back, fearing the odd and unknown enchantments placed upon this planet and, by extension, this cottage. Unknowing what sort of witchcraft could be forced upon him at the awkward and abrupt sensation, he quickly backed out of the white ray of luminous white light and quickly succumbed to the feeling of normalcy.

_Food._ He remembered. _Shelter, water... something._ His original goal was ripped from the recesses of his mind and brought forth to his questing gaze. Kurt searched everywhere in the room, tipping the chair's backward and peering under them, testing his luck. He looked everywhere in the room in hope to find at least an ounce of editable food. Unfortunately, he was not able to find anything of such quality.

In vain, he briefly poked his head into the kitchen to see if anyone else was back yet. Kurt realized that there was no one at the kitchen or near the lamp at all. No one was in any visible corners or highlighted prominent sections of the room itself. They must've still been in their respective rooms.

Kurt rushed back to his own room with a feeling of drowsiness overcoming him, his eyelids starting to fall down without his consent. Pretty soon, he found himself resting in one of the arm chair's in the pseudo living room falling asleep with the door wide open. Waiting for everyone to return, he figured that he could spare a couple minutes of well-earned snooze time before he would start his search again.

With that thought in mind, Kurt whistfully left the realm of the conscious and entered the ether of unknown.

* * *

The haunting images of the sins of Melinas admittedly renegade past as well as the dread that came hand in hand with finally being forced to owe up to it all against her will. It was all too much for the young woman. Her mind tried hard to keep up with all of the senses running in overdrive, all of the incoming data that she was receiving and filtering through. But unfortunately, it proved too much for her incoherent mind to operate and she abruptly passed out, contacting the floor with her head with a muffled thump.

Melina slowly fluttered her eyelids open after much time had past. They were revealed to the matte black of the thin corridor that resided in the pantry yet again. Her stomache growled at her when she felt a deep hunger as if she hadn't eaten in a couple days and, really, she hadn't eaten a decent, wholesome meal in the aforementioned time. Melina was operating on an empty fuel gauge at this point. She clenched her abs quickly to soften the gurgling of her stomach acids while her eye's darted around the blank room, remembering the detestable time she had experienced before passing out. Hoping it was just a dream, she tried to ignore all of the blatant signs contradicting her very hopes in front of her. She shuffled, with eye's close and arms shaking towards the sliding door of the pantry in a rather surprised but still shellshocked fashion. Melina wasn't counting on her legs to respond so eagerly and with such alacrity as they had. She had expected them to be dead, lose feeling or unresponsive. However, as soon as she brushed the chilling wood of the cabinet with her hand, she knew that her legs were working in perfect order. With the chill on her back ever so prominent from simply residing in the dark, she fumbled briefly for the knob of the sliding panel door. Underneath the door, she saw what appeared to be the light of the lamp still flickering in the safe haven of the kitchen. For the time being, it was her destination and, with the shadows encroaching and her rationality draining gradually, she finally grasped the small knob and smashed the door open. Not a word, nor exclamation was heard by her about the abrupt and enormous noise, but she figured that it was about time that they started minding their own business.

Not bothering to close the pantry behind her, she dashed toward the lamp as if the closer she got to it, the less likely she was to be taken back again, as if it were the last beacon of hope in the now so revealingly dark and gruesome chimeric one.

"Hey, guy's?" Melina called out, her confidence fading with each thumping heartbeat that past, allowing her fear and suspicions consume her lucidity.

Only the eerie sound of silence deemed her reply worthy as not a voice was heard in response. Melina curled up closer to the lamp, with one mantra travelling through her mind; please don't go out. She called Deela and Kurt's names again before realizing that they either couldn't hear her or just didn't want to respond. Melina sighed in frustration before heading off to the closest room in search for Kurt.

She poked her head into the pseudo living room and found the door open. Bright white light blinding her starry eye's as she glared on in awe of what wasn't there before. Melina squinted through the light and found that the room was lit up but, surprisingly, the room behind her, the kitchen, was soaking up little to none of the blinding pure light. Thinking it was just an odd phenomena, she walked further into the room, towards the source of the light, unsure of why it was so bright and what the heck could be causing such a bright illumination seemingly out of no where.

It seemed as though a trance washed over her lucid mind and began to control her every movement, pulling her further and further into the undetermined environment of outside the haunting cottage. Was she really going to go through with this?

Her legs, now operating under someone- or something- elses control ceased to stop moving at her command. She shuffled forward reluctantly in a hypnotized state of mind. Her arms arched out in front of her and managed to grab the door frame before she walked out into the open unknown domain. She propelled herself off of the door frame and blinked rapidly and trying to ditch the alluring stare of the somehow overpowering light. She somehow managed to break free of it's supernatural grip on her nervous system and stumbled into the pseudo living room. She looked around at a frantic pace but everything appeared black to her adjusting eye's. She wanted to call out, but saw it pointless as she was sure no one was in this room. After all, if there was someone in this room, wouldn't they've tried to help her out while she struggled against whatever witchcraft was bestowed upon her allowing figure? It was no question in her head that if anyone were in here, they were either unconscious, or not in here, which completely and utterly ruled out shouting for either Kurt or Deela. Both of them would not hear her, would not come to her, would not save her at this given moment.

She walked further on in the room, hoping that there was some way that she could get away from the eerily bright light and, to her thankfulness, there was. Pausing in the middle of the room, Melina noticed the shards of the glass window (of which she was still unsure of how the builder had managed to forge) splayed out on the floor behind one of the armchairs. The iridescent radiating light from outside did not reach her eye's from here, it was stopped by the door frame, for which she was ultimately grateful for.

Breathing a sigh of relief before clearing her throat, she realized that there was a dark figure residing in one of the arm chairs. It had a somewhat lanky build to it, although it seemed relaxed at the same time. "Hello?" She inquired, her indifferent and straight edge attitude sugar coating her zealou words.

No answer rewarded her ears. Just plain silence was given along with, what she though was, her own breath. Steady and slow, controlled and concise. It was then that she noticed that she was holding a baited breath in anticipation, and that the breathing she was hearing didn't actually belong to her. It was the figure in the chair that was gasping heated strokes of air towards her in a calmingly disturbing manner.

Melina slowly shifted her weight on the spot like a frightened little girl would, not knowing what to do. Her fight or flight instant- that usually is strictly set on fight- got jumbled up together with her fear as well as her angst She didn't know what it was, she didn't know it's capabilities. But all she knew was that it looked almost huma-

A groan sounded from the figure shrouded in shadows before her, causing all thought and sensibility to quickly become rendered as null. The figure in the chair widened itself slowly with two tig like appendages near the top of it; _arms?_

Another groan silenced her curiosity when her ears picked up a human-like tonality to it. "Hey," Kurt moaned from the couch in an utterly quizzical fashion.

Melina jumped backwards, stumbling into the other arm chair on the opposite side of the room. Her eye's wide in shock while her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, noise cancelled by a silent scream. Her heart drummed in her chest as she wracked her mind in a vain attempt to process every overdrived sense and receive every bit of mental data.

"K...kurt?" She whispered with a shaky breath.

"That's my name, don't wear it out." He sighed after stretching his long limbs after a brief slumber.

As quick as the tension and mystery of the intimidating figure had been sprung upon Melina, it had left. The fear just simply died out of her once her brains recognition kicked in and the light from outside seemed to light up the room ever more, illuminating his features as well as the every crevice in the room previously left in the shadows. Melina let out a deep, concentrated sigh, trying to fight back the aggression she harboured for allowing a simple silhouette run off with her sanity.

* * *

Deelas eye's shot open quickly before she sprung upwards onto her feet with great alacrity. Unwilling to give the fear and paranoia a chance to leave it's residual metaphoric goo on her brains processing tendancies. She wouldn't allow herself to get swallowed by fear, she would not let herself succumb to the shadowy grave that had become of her hopes and dreams less than just 3 days ago.

Taking a trembling step backwards, out the door, she scanned the floor in search for any more of the dreadful insidious roots that appeared to litter the bedroom floorboards. They brutally pushed the wooden floor aside and made way for themselves as the malevolent plants started to grow near her feet. Grass was starting to seep into the floor as well, she could tell by the heavy layer of greenish tint in the back corner of the darkness that her sight remained plastered upon since standing. She took another step back. Now, Deela was fully emerged into the kitchen albeit one of the darker parts where the light didn't reach.

"Hey, guy's?" She sounded with a voice that immediately betrayed her previous state of determination and confidence.

"In here!" Came a response and, for once, she was happy to hear the not so mellifluous tonality of other humans that weren't her one and only friends back home.

She walked with her arms clamped to her thighs as if she thought if she moved her arms away from herself they would be ripped off and sent away never to be seen again. Deela wasn't composed in the least bit when she following the light hum of Kurt's reverberating laughter to the pseudo living room. Her hair, she could feel, was matted in some places from laying on the ground too long. She could feel a sweat stain sneaking up on her back where a pool of liquid was steadily dripping from it. Physically, however, she felt fine other than a pounding headache that burned like a thousand suns.

Deela halted in the doorway for a short time as she spotted the white light that everyone seemed to intrigued about upon first impression. It didn't seem harmful, she decided, but it did have some dangerously alluring quality to it; the same one of a mythological siren's song. You know it won't end well, but it puts you in a trance-like state where logically processing a situation is simply not an option anymore.

Her eye's, still adjusting to the light of the room, saw an over saturated image of two figures not far away, speaking to each other in a hushed and (almost) monotonous voices. A flury of bright whites and reds and purples entered her iris' causing her to squint until her eye's finally adjusted to the bright contextural feel of the room. Deela lowered the arm that she held above her eye's (in a failed attempt to reduce the amount of light input) and let it fall weightlessly to her side.

"H-hey." She spoke shakily. If Melina or Kurt picked up on her fear or previously imminent state of insanity than they didn't dare speak of it.

Instead, they simply looked at her with an off glance and, with a wave, continued their whispering conversation. Deela could only pick up some rare words out of their debate. _What_, _light_, _white_, _bright_, and_ trance _were but a few of these select words that she could eavesdrop.

She decided to but in anyway. Something about her making her point, or making them realize that she had a brain and a say in what they do or think made her feel special; made her feel like she would only achieve higher in the survivability equation.

"So," She interrupted the both of their hushed tones, making them inaudible in comparison to her larger, more full bodied quality of voice. They both instantly, yet reluctantly, looked towards Deela. "What do you guy's think the light is? Why does it shine upon us? Had the builder meant this to happen?" She asked.

"If the builder of the cottage had meant the light to shine through the door on a particular night, or even if the light reappears every night, it would conclude that he had a _lot_ of time to plan it out, or was just lucky. Either way, I see it to simply be a fluke. And as for the 'what it is' part. I would hazard a guess at it being emitted from someone else on the planet." She paused for a somewhat dramatic silence but, for some reason, Kurt could not stop fidgeting. Melina tried to ignore Kurt the best she could for the time being, turning fully toward Deela. "We all saw it. This planet isn't normal. There are separate, floating, islands in here. We don't even know if this planet has a core, has a mantle or a crust." If only she knew how right her next statement actually was.

"I don't think it's entirely impossible to have other humans or, dare I say, other life on this planet besides us- okay, Kurt. Seriously. _What is it?!_" It seemed that Melina couldn't ignore someone for a long while.

Kurt didn't answer Melina verbally, all he did was look up at both Deela and Melina, shifting his glare between their sneers and then point out the window. Other than all of the spiked edges of the reflecting glass that remained in the window, the three could easily see the admittedly large moon hanging in the sky like time had stopped. The moon was massive. Colossal. Humongous! _Easily_ twenty times larger it seemed, in appearance at least.

The two girls' foreheads met their palms at the same time with a satisfying smack that rung through Kurts ears until he smiled deviously.

"Other than that meager display of trickery," Deela smirked at Kurt while squinting her eyes slightly, giving a mock shake to enforce her point. "Where do you two propose we go next? Obviously, there's no food here and no where to sleep."

"You had the bedroom, wasn't there any food or, you know, _bed,_ in there?" Melina asked in monotone with a deadpan expression.

Deela shuddered in remembrance of her quest in the bedroom and how it turned up negative for both her search, and her sanity. "There was a single bed in there, yeah. But, unless you wanna risk all of the plant life strangling you in your sleep or waking up to a grass infestation on the floor alongside two random acquaintances you just met a couple days ago, I wouldn't recommend it." Deela spoke as persuasively as possible, trying to play down the fact that she got her mind handed to her in the ultimate game of coherence. "Oh, also. There's no food." She added quickly, throwing a hand up and waving it around.

"Alright, well it looks like we'll just have to go search for some. I'm getting hungry..." Kurt replied from the armchair, twisting the pelted rug around with his boots.

"What if it's raining? What'll we do then?" Melina asked, a hint of concern in her normally level voice. _Was she scared of... rain? _

"Then we hide under a tree and wait for it to pass." Kurt deadpanned.

"Plus," Added Deela. "It doesn't look like there's any clouds in the sky... Like, literally. None. At all." All three of them walked up to the window and, although it was night, they peered at the sky searching for non-existent clouds.

With a slight, unbelieving 'huh' from Kurt, they all relaxed back into the respective positions. "So, it's settled then, eh?" Deela requested. "We move out now, and try to find water and/or food?"

"Yessir." Kurt replied automatically, standing up and relishing in how pliable the fur was on the pelt and how soft it was at the same time.

"Ma'am, to you, bub." Deela poked at him before turning around and waiting for the three to meet her at her sides.

Side by side, the three of them walked out of the cabin, through the pure white light, wondering, hoping against hope, that there would be some sort of miracle that can feed them. Some sort of gift that will make their previously abhorrently difficult life become somewhat easier on their tired and fatigued minds, both physically and mentally. Although, that hope, was just about to be destroyed.

* * *

**A/N:** _So... How are all of you?! It's been a while, eh? *Checks time on computer* Dang, almost two whole months!  
I couldn't let you guy's hanging that long, so I decided to... Yeah, who am I kidding..._

_I took off November for NaNoWriMo, for those of you who don't know of my absence (or those who forgot...), and I'm _very_ please to report that I'm the youngest one in my city to fully achieve and surpass (albeit by 600 words) the 50,000 words goal set by the Adult challenge! The book isn't finished yet though. I feel as though I'm only about half or 3/4 way through the plot line.. Oh well, enough of troublesome topics. _

_Onto the happiness!  
I started this chapter on December first. And by started, I mean that I made the quote, title, and message that predicates the chapter. I officially started the chapter content... 3 days ago... Heh.. I've been a touch lazy (mostly friends wanting me to do stuff with them. .). But yes, I know I'm evil, and I hope that the second longest, if not thee longest, chapter in this story thus far will make up for it!_

_Don't forget to favourite and review! It makes chapters come out faster, seriously! I don't like saying that, but it just boosts my motivation and self-appreciation (of which I have little of the latter...)._

**January, 18th, 2013:** Update~  
_So.. Yeah. Haven't really written a lot of this story since the last update. Yay~  
ANYWAY... I'm going to start writing some more of it this weekend (I hope). I've just been busy with stuff going on.. I'm learning so many new things, keeping up with school and through everything that's going on with family- and friends-, my writing has been suffering. My apologies. But, I'll get started on this now. ^^;  
_

**Love and Laughter,**

_Archangel.~_


	7. The Solace Of The Night

"_We like to think that there is something good to hold on to but for a good reason, it's just us hanging on to the trust that inevitably ends with the incarnation of the Lucifer."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**VII. The Solace Of The Night.**

* * *

_Into the night,_

_one last great fight._

_Fluidly moving, icily cold,_

_They hide in the shadows._

* * *

The decadent moon was elegantly descending below the horizon, signifying that, once again, they had gone another full night without any food or water. No sustenance for one more day would inevitably kill them. Normal people shouldn't even go a day without good food and water, let alone going three. The trio was dangerously close to dehydration and had no idea how to solve it other than find a river. So, that was the reasonable thing to search for with what little stamina they had left, and that's exactly what they did.

The trio decided upon a random direction as soon as they exited the horrid and spectral cabin, a silent agreement passed between the three of them that they would never go inside that abhorrently haunted place.

They walked on the pointed path for countless seconds, minutes and, soon, hours came to join the mix. Conversation scarce between the young idealists who's recent revelations of surviving seemed to be getting more and more distant as the day droned onward. The darkened environment, the twisting tree's and roots as well as the random, yet ominous, screeches and hollers from feral animal's far off ceased to rattle the young adults through their skin. As they walked their slow pace as three people without viable sustenance within 72 hours could possibly do, they eventually began to see patterns in the tree's. Or so they thought. It seemed as though the tree's and the path they walked on followed a distinct, well-worn path. It was almost as if this particular section of the forest floor, covered with grass, moss, and dirt, was eroded away for a specific reason. But the reason, they still had to figure out.

As the day solemnly and silently dragged on, fewer and fewer words were spoken. Simply confirmations of where they were headed and how long they thought it would take were muttered between the admittedly varied trio. The shallow shadows and horrific screeches that were unfamiliar to their ears were quickly droned out by the monotonous shuffling through the canopy's dirt worn path.

The shrieks of the various birds and the dreadful void of sound that followed ever so slowly transformed from being creepy and abnormal to expected and typical. If there was no sound at all, then they know something would be wrong. So, with that in mind, they kept the songs of the avians continuing through their ears with pleasure, no doubt in their mind that they weren't safe although, they also weren't in any immediate danger as well.

This forest, this time, it was all a big mess of emotions for the three. However collected they appeared to be, however placid they remained on the outside. Inside, they were a mess. Even Melina and Kurt, the two trained from previous experiences to keep their emotions and mental fortitude in check even in the most dire and taxing situations, had to come to a fault at some point. It just so appears that being stranded on an entire planet without any instantly plausible connection back to their family, their own planet, or even to any civilization whatsoever. Being stuck and forced to deal with the elements and haunted by their own retreating sanity was the point that they would break.

With one thing on their mind, and almost no more stamina to continue on with the most simplest tasks such as keeping themselves upright, they forced themselves onwards. Soon, however, pareidolia started to sink in the minds of the three wanderers. The semi-achromatic background of the forestry around them began to morph into images interpreted by their subconscious. The very leaves up above their heads began to twist and turn far more than they should have been in the faint wind. Images elicited from their rapid and sporadic movements kept the pace of the group at a moderate speed. Yet with their crushing thirst and decapitating hunger, they would be bound to fall and slowly wither away any moment now.

It was inevitable that they would develop some state of perceptual vigilance in with going this long without anything passable for food or water, It was just a matter of time before they started seeing mirage's of table-top banquets or hear the sound of a fresh water river flowing palpably not too far away. Thankfully, even though the moon was far past the zenith, now cresting the horizon and the new day starting, the sun was not up yet. With no sun, it wouldn't be as hot for them, causing them to sweat more and lessen their decidedly miniscule life span.

The large leaves and high tree tops provided shade every where they went and, they assumed, everywhere in the forest was aridly shaded. Helpful for when the sun does eventually come up in the next eight or so hours. At the moment, with neither the sun, nor the moon shining directly upon them, it was a wet kind of coolness. It was as if the air itself was sticking to your skin and clothes, curling your hair and dampening it at the same time. The only good thing about it was that it was not that hot out. They would not sweat out, they would prevail to the next step. They cannot afford to give up on their quest for survival at this moment. When you're so close to your goal, but just far enough out of your grasp that you can skim it with the tip of your fingers, but just cannot grasp a firm hold of it. It was going to be tough not to die here, Deela soon realized, but that is a risk and a truth that she will just have to accept along with the others. When it comes time, they would have to be prepared to sacrifice everything they've gained in their life for the most primordial desire that's ever circulated in humanity; existence.

Gradually, each of the three of them started picking up the gentle crashing of water on the shores of some sort of crevice. It didn't seem as deep and full as an ocean would be, so they quickly rules that out. Their stomach's and throats craving the fresh fluid, they had a new purpose to head on. But it was very possible, Deela reminded herself, that the water could only be an image of her brain. However, it was also very improbably that all three of them would have the exact same hallucination in perfect synchronicity as each other.

Regardless of what each other thought, they would have to continue forward and stick to their current route. They would have to end up finding the water or, at least, find whatever it was that they were hearing.

The pleasing tone of the river washing itself on the grassy shore was just like a tranquil rhythm, a nursery rhyme to their ears. They needed it far more than they needed food at the moment. They could survive for at least another week, even if in rough condition, if they had water. Anything would be better than aimlessly wandering the forest... island... planet... whatever this was, with the goal of untimely death in mind. Anything, whether it be a goal- a place of solitude, food, water, shelter, anything- would be better than right now.

The trio silently took this agreement to heart as they shambled on further towards the harmonically divine sound. They wouldn't admit it to each other, but the sound of the shallow waves gliding over each other, washing back onto the ground beside the- or what they thought it was at the time- river was the most grateful tune they had ever heard in their years of life.

"Guy's, remember that we're famished and parched. This could easily just be a vision conjured up by our brain." Deela spoke her words of wisdom.

"Yeah, yeah. We know , no need to preach to us about it." Melina said, her ever charming tonality lacing her cold words.

"I just don't want to get your hopes up for when there is no actual water. You've heard the story of the 'I smell burnt toast', right?" Deela replied, although her reply was more meant for Kurt.

"Yeah. The doctor's prodded at the patient's brain and she somehow smell burnt toast, right?" Kurt responded pridefully.

"Half right, Kurt." Deela corrected." That lesson taught us that we have certain tendrils and axons in our brain that allow us to perceive pseudo information through our 5 main senses, Taste, touch, hear, see, and smell. Certain actions committed to our brain will elicit different responses from each of the aforementioned senses."

"Heh, show off..." Melina muttered under her breath.

Deela caught her spiteful words but decided against making a scene from it. She was stronger than that, she had to be stronger than that. Deela knew that nothing good would come from arguing with the only two other people that, quite possible, exist on this planet along with her, and she would be damned to screw up any relations that she had with them. If not for her sake, for her sanity's sake.

"But that still explain why I can hear rushing water, just like the rest of you can... I mean. There has to be a source of it, doesn't there? Something nearby hopefully..." Kurt spoke in a contemplative tone that really did not suit him at all, especially not with his goofy smile hung out to try as a pronged hand held his chin.

"No, you're right, Kurt." Deela confirmed. "We need to find it, it could be our only shot at redemption."

"How will it rescue us from the planet again, Deela? It's water. Or, and please correct me if I'm mistaken, but did water suddenly adapt the power of teleportation in the last few moments? Because, if it didn't, I don't think that we're going to be saved from drinking just a little water."

Melina's attitude was starting to irk Deela to no end. She was constantly nitpicking the little details and Melina didn't even know why or how she was doing it! The water joke was a new one though, making Deela smirk slightly. She didn't think that Melina had the creative expertise, or even the creative judgment to come up with something as witty as that. _Teleportation_, that's a new one.

"Guy's," Kurt spoke up, seeing the glare in Deela's eye. "look up here, I think I found it." He pushed aside one of the many small bushes in sight to reveal a fresh flowing river. Little white caps seldom peaked the ridge of the calm waters. The liquid had seemed to been there for a while, flowing off of the rocky carapace of a waterfall down into this circular lagoon. It looks like a tranquility chamber or a hidden secret. Kept from the eye's of civilization to bloom in it's natural state. The rocks had a wet sheen to them that the miniscule amount of twilight reflected. While the waterfall and lagoon itself held small disturbed ripples. It looked like someone had drawn it and them placed it there in real life. It looked poster perfect. And, albeit small, it was the perfect place to wash up and get a fresh drink. Or, it wouldn't been if it had not been there.

Melina was about to stick her foot out above the crest of the hill when Kurt's arm came crashing down on her chest, stopping her form making the mistake. Melina quickly turned around, stamping her foot on the ground.

"Kurt!-" She started but was immediately covered by Deela's flat hand wrapping around her mouth as well as a firm hushing sound by the same woman.

Melina's eye's travelled Deela's with a certain severity that made Deela realize that she was going to be hearing about this later. But that didn't matter when their very lives were in danger. It wasn't until Deela jutted her finger towards the crest of the hill that she saw Melina's eyes start to wonder around, following her direction. Deela waited for a brief moment for Melina to find what both, she and Kurt, had found instantaneously. Finally, when Melina's eye's widened in shock, they both knew that she had found what they were hiding from.

Now, none of the three members of their gang actually knew what they were looking at but, by the way it was skinning the strange animal on the shore of the circular pond, they knew it looked like trouble. It was wearing a black, metal looking, helmet that had wires coming out of it, circling around to the front. It had a beigey tinge of skin, close to a mix of brown and yellow as was shown through the easily transparent black mesh that it wore over it's upper torso. The ferocious looking beast also donned a loincloth that hung low, almost like a kilt. It was a beigey material as well, looking not unlike leopard print. There was a strange device attached to his wrist. It appeared to be manufactured with some kind of silver metallic substance. It was hard to see from this distance, but it appeared to be rough looking and seemed to bear hinges on the outside of it's make. In the monsters' gloved hands it gripped a small steel-looking dagger, though it appeared to be extremely sharp as he was slicing directly through the major bones and skin tissue in rapid succession.

"That's... so disgusting" Kurt exclaimed the thought that all three of them were undoubtedly thinking. "I think that sound will be in my nightmares..." he whispered over his shoulder at the frightened comrades. Grimacing, the two women met Kurt's displeased and rather rattled stare.

"What do you guy's think though... It's the only water for, what we can tell, is quite a long while. And, on the plus side, he's got the only meat we've found for a couple days. If we can take down that large monstrosity, than we'll be good for the next couple days, providing we can get a fire going." Kurt tried to reason.

"Yeah, he's not wrong, Melina." Deela added, flinching slightly at the look she soon received.

"I'm not even going to tell you both how stupid this idea is in it's entirety. I mean, look at him. He's currently _skinning_ a freaking dead animal! I don't think that's the kind of thing you want to mess with at the moment." Melina countered. "I don't care if we're going to die. I am not going to die at the hands of some monster who's going to tear me apart and use my innards as it's damn _loincloth_!"

"Well, that sucks for you Melina." Deela nodded at the other girl before turning to glance at Kurt. "Let's go." She spoke with a cold tone.

Kurt nodded in response, unsheathing his knife from his boot and taking a defensive crouching position as he started to round the top of the hill. _This is it. We pull this off, and we can survive for a few more days._ Deela thought to herself, following close behind Kurt not having a weapon of her own.

Both of them knew that this was not a smart plan, but they also knew that this was their only plan. Other than the condescending Melina that refused to assist their butt's that they were currently laying down on the line of death, they would be going in and attacking something that could quite possible maul them to death with something as simple as it's fingers. That was not a good, nor comfortable, feeling for either one of them.

Deela huddled behind Kurt, watching where he stepped, stepping in his shoes' imprints to make as little noise as possible while she trotted on behind him. The goal of their game right now was surprise. If they lost the one salient element that their lives and survival on this planet thus far would be futile. They had no room for error in this slapped together fight and, by the looks of that abhorrently reeking being just in front of them a couple meters, they knew that they were going to be in for a match. Even a larger one seeing as how Kurt was the only one that knew how to fight and was keen on protecting their group instead of just himself like some other selfish people.

Quietly stepping passed the fallen and dilapidated branches and twigs fallen from their mothers, the two moved on towards what could most likely be, their death. The only thing as their witness would be the uncomfortably silent of the quiet and almost tranquil breeze, the rushing of leafs blowing in it and scraping on one another, as well as the prying and pitying eye's of one Melina Mailer.

"This is it, Deela. Are you sure...?" Kurts whisper was heard over the shallow breeze that mangled Deela's delicate hair.

"Yes. If this is our only means of survival, then I am absolutely positive that I want to do this." Her whisper short in the wind as she was cautious not to provoke or even alarm the predator that was currently skinning it's prey.

When they were getting ready to pounce upon it's back and slice it's neck open with their one weapon they held, the breeze died and the monstrosity stood. It quickly turned around and seemed to gaze passed their cowering forms. Thankfully, a bush, covered in water and dew from the darkness and early morning tradition covered their heat signature. No matter what kind of fantasy vision these things would have, no matter how high they are in the food chain, it would be impossible to outwit the laws of physics.

It quickly whipped around, the tendrils in the back of it's neck- Deela guessed it was his hair- whipped around like it would on herself if she were to spin quickly. The thing stared out across the lagoon at a brush that seemed quite resolved in the background.

_Something's wrong,_ Deela thought quickly. Either they strike now or, at the rate he was looking around, he'd spot them soon. _The only thing we can do right now... would be to attack... _She reasoned with herself. _I don't care what happens here, as long as we survive than I will be happy._

A quick shake of the bush on the opposite side distracted the beige-yellow skinned freak once more, allowing them to pounce from their bush. Kurt and Deela both charged from their hiding place at a rather slow speed, what with hunger killing them inwardly and quickly. They didn't even have much strength left to fight the thing with. Hopefully adrenaline will kick in soon.

The monstrosity whisked around as soon as it heard the footsteps padding against the solid ground beneath their covered feet and the rush of wind coming up behind it, indicating it's sensitive audio receivers. They say fear is your worst enemy in a fight. It's not your opponent, it's your own psyche. Since you don't know what your opponent is trained in, or has on them, you will inevitable rush to the worst possible idea's. Both Kurt, and Deela, did not know anything about this obscure being they were about to fight.

Letting out a very guttural roar, he lashed his wrists downward, withdrawing a sharp set of razor blades. Kurt's and Deela's face darkened as their predator lurched forward with hulking steps and began to run towards them. Kurt veered to the right and Deela swung left, narrowly avoiding the wide swing of the attackers wrist blades. She maneuvered behind the being, meeting back up with Kurt who wielded the small combat knife in his hand firmly. Their eye's set on the being with desperation and determination, but their stomach groaned and moaned in protest of muscle movements.

The predator started to turn around slowly after his one miss. Deela wondered if he expected to hit her with it and is why he wasn't moving, but she quickly banished the thought. Total cognition should be dedicated to survival right now.

It glared at them through it's darkened helmet and, even though the light was admittedly dim, both parties could see that no one was leaving here without claiming a life for themselves. Deela looked around on the floor in quick spurts, scanning the dirt laden ground for any sharp objects useful in battle. Luckily there was a rather thick and pointed stick that resembled a spear resting off to the side a small bit. Deela eyed the stick and quickly shifted back to the predator. If she moved, she was sure that the predator would use the advantage. Though she didn't have much of a choice, she had to do it.

Without a word, nor a look at Kurt, Deela dived to her right, opposite direction that Kurt was standing, and landed roughly on the ground. Surprisingly, the monstrosity didn't move one bit. Instead, he simply glared at the girl on the ground that had one hand firmly clasped upon the pseudo spear. _Maybe these people had some honour kind of system? Maybe their more diverse than simply savages..._ Deela thought as the picture of the carved animal on the lagoon's shore stood out in her mind.

Quickly dismissing the thought, she ripped the stick from it's spot in the ground and stood up, expertly maneuvering beside Kurt. Deela nodded towards her comrade who nodded back. Each of the pair started to walk to the side, almost as if circling the monstrosity. With their sharp (but close-range) weapons, they could take down the malicious being if they could score just a few good hits to the jugular.

Razor blades extended out of his second wrist upon a quick flick of his indicating that it was go time. He was ready, and he would be victorious. Deela made a quick jar inside of his personal bubble, testing his reflexes. The predator simply stood by and did nothing as they tried to get a reaction out of him.

Eventually, Kurt and Deela were on both sides of the insidious enemy, arms wielded with weapons and pointed towards him. Kurt decided to be the brave one by lunging forward, scoring a quick gash across the predators arm, eliciting a sharp roar from him as he turned and lunged toward Kurt. Kurt dived out of the way of the splaying razors in the nick of time while, at the same time, Deela came up from behind the predator and lunged her spike forward. The monster used his forward momentum and rolled onto the ground, dodging Deela's spear for the time being, coming up behind a tree.

Several beeping noises were heard from behind the tree as the smell of foreign sweat came through their noses. Kurt took a sketchy glance over to Deela as he motioned with a sly finger to circle the tree as he did the same. But, before they could even initiate the idea, the creature was back and he looked quite the same with one exception. There was now a gun mounted on his shoulder, scanning back and forth between the two humans.

With his military instincts coming into effect, Kurt quickly dove behind a tree before anything could happen to him. Deela wasn't so lucky. Upon seeing Kurt dive, she attempted to do the same, but fell slight short of the tree with a sharp exhale of force pressing on her chest. Kurt noticed a blue aura charging around the shoulder cannon of their enemy and knew that Deela would be done for if he didn't do anything. But he would be risking his own life in the process. At the moment right now, he decided, it was his life or Deela's.

Deep down, he wanted both of them to live, but he knew only one would do so if he acted right now. So, with his mind made up, he stayed cowering behind the tree, hoping that he wouldn't get shot by the inevitable plasma pulse as well.

Deela's eye's widened as she saw Kurts form peak out from the tree and then, just as quickly, retreat back to cover. He was _not_ going to help her. She should have known not to trust him, she should have been smarter. And now, she was going to pay with her poor decision with her life.

Looking up, she saw the energy collecting inside of the tube of the cannon as the creature aimed it directly at her. A small drip of green blood oozed from the gash on it's arm and splattered onto the dirty path, tainting it with the scene of her death and final stand.

She attempted to stand, but fumbled repeatedly on the wet and slippery grass. She grasped her spear in hand like it was her guardian angel, the only thing to keep her from the black divide of death, and kept it close to her body, poised outward as if her killer would just willingly impale himself on top of it. Deela jabbed it back and forth, hoping to strike some part of the being before she was killed by his ever intimidating shoulder cannon.

_There's nothing else I can do!_ Deela thought, slamming her eye's shut in anguish and continuing to attempt to raise herself from the cold deathbed that was the ground. She opened her eye's for a brief moment and saw the cannon about to fire, the energy pulse was nearing it's charging point. Time seemed to slow down as her eye's looked gloomily at her demise. A tear strolled out of her eye, dampening her blush skin through the chilled atmosphere of the night.

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a large stone rocket it's way through the last rays of moonlight and enter the barrel of the predators shoulder cannon. No one had any idea where the rock even came from, but it lodged itself inside the barrel and did not come out. Deela stared at the cannon, still pointed at her, pulsing and almost rocking with plasma energy until it fired. She could not close her eye's in this moment. Something came over her and she just stood there, staring at the damnation about to happen. Someone's life was about to come to a complete cessation. _But who's...?_ She wondered.

The blue aura surrounded the rock lodged inside of the cannon and, with Deela's death in mind and the time seeming to slow with the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she saw the happiest sight of her life. The rock seemed to engulf the entrance, not allowing any of the plasma energy out. A brief thought crossed her mind as to how the rock didn't just melt away, but she dismissed it hastily as she could do nothing else but stare at the spectacle. Flames started to erupt from the cannon that soon consumed the predator itself into a boiling mess of fire, flesh, and metal. Sickening groans and pops were heard by all around as the fire crackled in the darkness of night. A guttural, anguished roar elicited from the masked mouth of their enemy as it fell to it's knee's and slowly became no more but a flaming corpse. Thankfully, the ground was mostly all dirt at this point so it couldn't set anything on fire, but that wasn't what Deela was thinking of right now. She was wondering why Melina had to have just helped both Kurt and, more importantly, Deela from their deaths when she clearly hated working as a team.

Pondering this for a couple moments, Deela didn't even notice Kurt shamble up to her and offer a hand to help her up. Angrily, Deela slapped the hand out of her way and stood up, somehow finding it way easier now that her palms weren't clammy and that her grip had come back. She didn't even notice that she had dropped the stick in the midst of the spectacle.

Deela shrugged and brushed her dirty hands off on her tattered pants before glaring up the small hill crest where Melina should have still been.

"Melina?!" Deela called out with a veritably shaky voice. "Are you still there?"

They both waited for an answer, but no response came other than the unsettling silence that used to have birds filling the air. Not even their stomach's dared to grumble right now.

"Mel?!" Kurt called out, hoping his more masculine voice would bring her out. "You can come out now, it's safe." He taunted in a vain attempt to make everything seem like it was normal.

Deela glanced over and Kurt in a scared fashion before forcing her trembling legs to shuffle up the hill. Kurt beat her there though as he had more control over his adrenaline rushes. He was almost back to his normal self by the time Deela started her hill shambling.

"Uhh, hey Deela?" Kurt asked, his voice becoming higher pitch with the question.

"Y-yes, Kurt?" She replied on her way.

"Do you know where Melina went?"

"N-not really-" Deela's answer was cut off as she joined Kurt at the top of the hill. The bush in front of them, the one they pulled aside to get here. It started wiggling ever so slightly, but just enough that they could see it wasn't the ever quiet breeze from this planet.

Deela instinctively grabbed the nearest thing she could to protect herself with. Awkwardly enough, if was Kurts sleeve. They both made mocking disgusted faces as they pulled apart from one another. They instantly calmed down and put on straight faces as they same an arm push its way through the bush, followed by another one as well as a head. They finally recognized the person to be Melina, but quickly and duly noticed that something was wrong with her.

As if to answer their unspoken question, she pulled something else through the bush. Another girl. A human. Deela inhaled sharply and balled her knuckles at the sight of the bruises and scratches the girl had on her body. "Who is this?" Kurt asked incredulously.

Deela let out an abrupt and short breath before sucking in another quick inhale. "Emily." She breathed. "Emily Vawnelle."

* * *

**A/N:**_ Yay, finally! I'm totally supposed to be studying for my provincials right now, but I figured I need at the very LEAST, one update per month... 5k words... Yay. Internet hugs for you all! :)  
__Oh yeah, also. Tell me what you think! ^^;_

__**Love and Laughter,  
**_Archangel.~_


	8. Mildly Spoiled Meat

"_I finally notice, that with the absence of your speech, your music, that nothing is as it seems. Love is a word, just as hate. Kind, an adjective like cruel. Only afraid, it seems, holds value... For it describes what I've become."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**VII. Mildly Spoiled Meat.**

* * *

_You may encounter blessings,_

_miracles, or happy accidents._

_But they are not, I repeat, not_

_going to last. Ride your luck when it's there._

* * *

Deela stared blankly at the scraped, tattered and bloody body of her childhood friend she thought was forever lost. Emily's clothes had been ripped and sliced quite vehemently. Blood stained the tears of her denim jeans and several skinless sores on her arms. The barely conscious body relinquished few shaking breaths, rattling her rib cage and spurting blood from a busted lip. She wore a black hoodie-like jacket that covered her arms and chest. Underneath, visible by the unzipped portion of the hoodie, was an aqua blue T-shirt that was entirely void of any insignia or design. A pair of cloudy gray lace-up sneakers covered her fuzzy darkened purple bamboo socks. Deela noted that Emily's old crew-cut style brown hair was replaced by a silky blanket of armpit level hair. A single shred of curiosity fumbled it's way into Deela's painfully traumatized psyche. _How has she changed so much...Her face will always be the same though,_ Deela thought as she absentmindedly stroked Emily's deathly chilled cheek with a horribly malnourished skeletal hand. _But she'll always be my friend..._

With a solemn clearing of the throat, Deela raised herself from her knee's and glanced over a heaving shoulder. "We need to find food, water, and shelter even more-so now. I will not let her die on my account." She spoke with a voice that was admittedly shaken and wavering, but was definitely not void of determination.

It was then that Deela had made up her mind. She didn't necessarily need to survive here before, she thought. There was no way to get off the planet to her knowledge. Their food and water resources were dwindling to a miniscule few more hours left of sustainability. Death would surely consume them in a matter of time without any good motivation to strive them forward. But now Deela had someone that she could focus on. Someone from her real life to knock some sense back into her. She realized now that she could not give up, especially not on Emily. Everything that the other girl had done for Deela was unrepayable. The least Deela could do was to make sure that Emily would survive. It was a silent oath to herself, she decided with a clenched fist sheathed beside her tattered pants, that she would not give up again.

"Deela... Who is she?" Kurt asked, his voice low and tame as if he were talking to a hostage taker.

"She's Emily. She's a friend from home. She helped me grow up..." Deela softly replied, slamming her eye's shut to protest the inevitability of the clear liquid sadness. "She's the reason I'm still alive."

"What do you mean? Did she save you somehow?" Kurt wondered, knowing he shouldn't be voicing his thoughts for it would have the adverse effect eventually; recalling horrific memories.

Before Kurt had a chance to retract his statement, Deela has already turned around to face the isolated oasis with a grumbling stomach and belly full of breath. "She saved me from myself."

Kurt and Melina both waited several moments before speaking up. They weren't sure if that was all she had to say but, apparently, it was. The emotional weight of the scenario would eventually dawn on the two stupefied individuals kneeling close by the almost lifeless corpse of Emily Vawnelle; the childhood savior and protector of one self-spiting troubled child.

Deela, being the ever temperamental young woman that she was at the time, turned ninety degree's and made a point to stare at each of the pair of eye's watching her graceful form as her greasy and tattered hair was picked up by the slight breeze. "We can get some water down there," She jerked her thumb toward the oasis with a stale stance. "We can also feed ourselves on that animal that the thing was skinning down by the shore. It looks like it'd need quite the carnivorous diet to sustain it's type of build, so I highly doubt that the meat it was preparing is tainted or bad in any way. Though, we may have to cook it." She raised a finger and placed it on her dainty chin for a brief moment of contemplation, looking out towards the small tranquil pond.

"It's appear light enough. Kurt, you being the guy here, you can haul that boar looking feral with us while we seek out shelter. Any suggestions?" She implored.

"Yeah, actually." Kurt spoke up, seeing as Melina was still careful about her actions. She didn't want to make anyone else unintentionally angry seeing as it wouldn't exactly be beneficial for the group, especially with how their tango with death was gradually failing.

"There has to be shelter nearby. I was trained for long survival missions. Albeit I had a troupe will me, as well as rations, but I know how to handle these. Look for shelter and the likes. There is always shelter near waterfalls. A canopy of tree's, or a vast quantity of entangled sky high branches that we could rest underneath for the time being."

"Seems fair to me. Oh and, Melina." Deela pointed at the usually malicious girl. "I can take Emily from here, thanks." She finished with quite the malevolent and venomous hiss which merely got a curt nod and beady eye's in response as Melina slowly backed away from the unconscious body.

With every step Melina took backwards, Deela countered in the forwards. Eye's of possession and belonging bore down Melina as the approaching teenager wrapped her calloused palms around the arm of her unconscious friend, picking her up gently. Reaching down with all the grace of a malnourished and dying skeleton, she picked up Emily's legs with her other hand and began to carry her bridal style. "Let's go," Deela called, her voice laced with an icy indifference only further stating her determination.

Melina and Kurt glanced at each other quickly, meeting the others quizzical stare. Wondering a silent curiosity as to what these two had been through to evoke such an emotional response to the simplest sight of the other. _If anything, it would be an utmost woeful tale of sacrifice and tribute, _Kurt silently decided. Meanwhile, Melina knocked off the provoking reaction as some random occurrence. Maybe something about the girl reminded her of home, or maybe why she needed to stay alive.

Eventually, after a brief contemplating moment, Kurt and Melina broke their ardent stare and rose to their feet. Stomach's growled at each other like the guard dogs of hells gate as the duo briskly walked to catch up to the speed walking woman ahead of them. The quiet breeze sifted through their admittedly distraught and rugged hair, chilling them slightly.

As Deela passed the charred ashes of what was almost her untimely demise, she grunted albeit silenced by the creaking and groaning of branches swaying in the wind. Kurt was the next one to pass the death bed of their enemy. Almost as if to contrast Deela's emote, Kurt stuck his tongue out and placed a heavy boot print directly in the middle of the raven speckled splotch of ash before turning back into the placid mask that he was so comfortable with wearing even though he despised it. Melina soon stepped passed it however, contrast to both of the other members of their miniscule party, she didn't do anything special other than continue walking towards the shore.

The first thing that the troupe discovered about the waterfall and pond alike was that it was not as deep or serene as they had first expected. From far back, barred by branches and foliage, the pond looked as if it could be something out of a calendar. The eloquently flowing water sprayed into the pool with a glittering from the moon. The pool itself held rippled only from the waterfall, it seemed. But as they reached the precipice of the shore, they noticed that the clear liquid they thought it to be was actually an incredibly cloudy brownish green. "Eugh.." Kurt arched his eyebrows and scrunched his face in disgust of the murky and vapid pseudo oasis.

"It's the best water we've found so far, so drink up while you can. We might not have more water later on." Melina spoke up, preventing anyone else from speaking up.

"She's right." Came the chilling voice of Deela that pulled everyone from their own worlds into reality. "Drink up now, or risk your death."

Deela set Emily down on the shoreline with great steadiness and caution and bend down on her own hands and knee's. She delicately cupped water in her hands from the top layer, making sure not to siphon any dirt along with the tasteless liquid. A sharp and abrupt inhale let everyone know how shocking the waters temperature really is.

Deela sipped the water savagely from her hands, sparing no table manners or grace. She was so incredibly thirsty that if she was sure the water held no other life or disease, she wouldn't drank straight from the pond itself. Kurt took the hint and knelt down on his own sore knee's and began to drink from his hand-cups. He was soon followed by a sighing and disgruntled Melina who held a most begrudging scowl on her rough lips.

Deela, finally feeling her thirst quenched and only hunger remaining, cupped some more of the murky liquid in her hands and skillfully poured it onto Emily's lips slowly. _The water should help heal her lips and hopefully get her to drink some before her body uses all of her water. _

After Deela was finished with thoroughly soaking Deela's lips, mouth, and sores as well as wiping them clean with whatever clean fabric she could find on herself (which wasn't much), she stood up and half walked, half jogged- with her new found energy- over towards the boar looking animal. Already partially skinned, she could tell that the meat was there in significant quantities. Though, she had no idea if it was edible or not even if they could cook it. "Kurt." She called out without looking at him.

"Yeah, D?" He replied before sipping some more water quite loudly.

"Would you kindly do a meat check?" Deela countered with a trying tone that she hoped didn't betray her genuine sincerity. However, with her sense of disparity at the moment, she wasn't sure.

"Yes, of course. I'll get right on it." The man answered as he popped his legs, jumping up into a stretch and walking over towards the pig.

Deela backed away a bit and kept an eye trained on Kurt as well as Emily. Kurt knelt down in front of the large pig, again on his sore and undoubtedly scabbed knee's, searching the pigs' outer skin for signs of any identifiable mutation or malicious disease. Deela focused ardently with her arms crossed on her chest, leaning back on one of her feet while Kurt thoroughly inspected the dead warthog. "The outside skin of the bugger looks edible, but I need an object or something to see the inside." He whispered over his shoulder.

"Oh, right. My knife... Duh." He shot back before Deela or an eavesdropping Melina could say anything on the matter.

Picking up his knife with a skillful hand, he grasped the brown leather roped hilt firmly. With his other hand, he pressed along the animal, feeling it's sub-obvious skeletal system and where the best place to cut him open would be. He decided that, since they'd be eating mostly the torso and down of the thing, he could just slash open from the chest. Thankfully, the creature was already laying on his back, stomach up to face the world.

Kurt grasped the hilt firmly and thrust it down into the chest cavity, the knife plunging through the skin with some resistance. He sawed the skin away from him, blood squirting up through the gashes and still seeping from the small area where the other monster they ran into was skinning him.

Eventually, he was finally finished with skinning some of the flesh away. Peeling it off, Deela noticed, Kurt held a face of utter misery and contempt. He coughed twice from the stench emitting from the carcass.

"Okay, there. That's good enough, step away from the vile beast." Deela's voice was shaking in a way that made Kurt think that she was at least trying to be humorous in her times of desperation.

"Yea-" His voice came to an abrupt halt with a rush of air through his mouth that gave Deela a hint that he was faking throwing up in his mouth. Tossing her hair aside with a roll of her determined eyes, she went to the carcass to examine the meat.

As she knelt down, the smell quickly became apparent to her. The deep seeded smell of a public urinal and sewage dump mixed together with a sort of bleeding incense. It combined for one of the most awkwardly displeasing scent that she had ever witnessed in her life. Though, with this new planet and environment, she more or less expected worse things to come. For example, the unconscious body that laid a couple feet to her left was once the shining bright eye's of her best friend is now a motionless body of minute chest movements to indicate breathing.

Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her of her, as well as everyone else's malicious and pressing hunger. A quick fleeting thought came to her mind before looking down at the punctured and oozing meat. _How are we going to survive this..._

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ Sorry for the delay... I've got a lot going on right now (just started really) but I should have the next one up quicker than this... I'm hoping back to once a month, hopefully twice a month. ^^_

_~Cyndercide_


	9. Grateful Grotto-- Part 1

"_Survivors are often called the cowards of warfare but, when you get down to it, they survive and the others don't."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**IX. Grateful Grotto- Part I.**

* * *

_There are the odd placements,_

_you can use them to your advantage._

_But don't overstay your welcome,_

_the wildlife here are vicious during the day._

* * *

"Now just one second," Kurt was yelling now. The ever frequent and paining tone of the two bickering people drilled into Deela's ears with a most incessant quality. "_You_ are accusing me of being of no help to our cause when, no longer than an hour ago, abandoned _us_," Deela didn't have to look behind her, she knew Kurt was glaring at her before returning his scolding look back at Melina, "at the first sight of danger?"

The ever ubiquitous silence of Melina trying to come up with a retort filled the air while Deela brushed away a wiry strand of blue-tipped blonde hair from her eyelid for about the fifth time that minute. Ever since she had announced that the meat from the boar-like mammal looked too tarnished and rotten to be edible, Kurt and Melina had begun arguing. Deela, seeing no way to break them up this time (even after trying to), stalked over to Emily's currently unconscious form and knelt down beside her, giving nothing but her back to, what seemed to be the old married couple of the group.

Her head, now bent, staring at the somehow still green grass beneath her outstretched knees, forced gravity to pull her mangled locks down into her face. Deela could barely hear the heated conversation going on behind her, but she wasn't toning it out at the same time. She was in one of those zones where you recognize your own thoughts as salient, hear everyone else, only, you don't process their sounds into meaning. She had been in deep thought for a while now, wondering about what has happened back home, how long has past, what's happened and, most importantly, whether or not Emily will wake up or not.

_She's been unconscious ever since we found her,_ Deela's mind was beginning to wonder to where she knew wasn't safe. Thoughts travel fast, however, and before she realized it she was falling back to the same pessimistic solution, _what if Emily isn't just unconscious..._

A quick check of Emilys' slowly rising and falling chest rendered Deela's pessimistic thought train to derail, if only for a moment. _She's alive for now and that's all the matter for the time being. We can worry about everything else later, just as long as you're okay, Em. Please, wake up soon._

Still no sound, nor action, from the unconscious corpse. Tears started to well up in her once strong eye's. Her mind shouted at her to not lose it, to hold on to her pride and keep a steady face. If not for her, and Emily's sake, than to seem strong in front of the new found comrades. However, after the first stream of liquid started to roll down her dirt ridden face, the wall was broken. Without a sound from either Emily, or Deela, tears dived to her chin and rolled off of her cracked lips with a kind of sadistic elegance and beauty one might find at a funeral of grievers.

_What if there's something wrong with her? What if she has a horrible affliction, wilting from the inside out?_ She wondered sorrowfully before realizing that it was out of her hands. She was unable to do anything to remedy her childhood bestie who, now, lay in front of her. Deela had no knowledge of medicine, nor herbs. Even if she did, she had doubts that it would apply to anything on this alien environment. The only thing worse that Deela could see happening, was if Emily had her arms folded on her chest. _Helpless..._ Just like when her parents died.

She hadn't noticed Kurt and Deela's argument had faltered by this point. Kurt was now standing on his back leg, arms crossed, but eyebrows raised in concern behind Deela's hunched form as her body shook erratically in time with soundless sobs. Melina was a good foot behind Kurt, staring off into the majestic tranquility of the pool. She seemed bemused at the irony; here, in front of her, is a pool without a ripple now. A soft blue hue tapping the surface of the crystalline water. Calm, and peaceful. Whereas to her immediate left, there was a scene of morbidity, loss, and just overall negativity. "Pathetic," she mumbled to herself, head cocked to the exact opposite direction of the drama.

Kurt knew that Deela needed something to take her mind off of the ever-standing feeling of helplessness settling in the unperturbed surroundings. He knew that all he had to do was distract Deela for the time being, to take her mind off of everything and just make her think. If you're busy in concentration about something else, you won't have enough brain power to lucidly ponder other emotions or, in this case, other- and potential- situations. Those are what dreams are for.

"Hey, Deela?" Kurt asked, his thumbs dipping into his pockets allowing his elbows to dangle freely about, smacking into his sides.

Even though he had heard the sorrowful sobbing that easily pierced the snapping cold of the night air before, it came a shock to him when Deela didn't so much as respond to him. "Deela?" he called again as if to reinforce his own concern.

"W-wh-what?" She snapped over her shoulder. Kurt could barely make it out however, due to the excessive wavering of her normally steady voice.

"I was just wondering," the cloth material his pants were made out of suddenly became interesting to his questing fingertips as he searched for something to keep them busy, "why did that rock halt the laser on that dudes shoulder... I mean... It's a rock... They have a melting point..." Deela had stopped sobbing at this point or, at least, it seemed to Kurt like she had, so he continued with his hopes that he's easing her mind.

"I'm just wondering why that rock didn't melt to the metal of the chamber. Instead, it just blocked the pathway and..." Kurt paused to motion toward the scorched stain of earth- or dirt, rather- that still lay on the ground despite their wanting to upturn that small portion.

"I-i... I don't know, K-kurt." Deela spoke, her voice almost mechanical in the way it seemed to repair itself so hastily. Although it still wasn't her normal, confident (appearing) tonality- not even close- it had begun to remedy the soft level increases and decreases that occur with intense core emotions.

"It m-might of just been because the laser d-didn't heat up en-enough, or-or... something else," Deela started to stand up, twisting her direction away from the unconscious form of her bestie and rubbing her puffy red eye's slowly. Even though her face appeared dry in the light of the post-zenith, it was obvious that she was holding them back with all her effort.

"Something else like what, Deela?" Kurt replied formally as if afraid to use any colloquialism in case it sets her off in a fit of rage- something they cannot afford at this point. Their food and medical supplies are next to nil. If someone threw a tantrum and hurt someone else, or themselves, than that could jeopardize their lives permanently. Especially in this dog eat dog hierarchy of wildlife.

It was a few moments until Deela responded again, as if she was thinking it over or, if you prefer something more drastic, attempting to switch her minds resolve from that of her friends' safety to the potential threat of more of those demonic beings and how they can easily dispatch them. When she finally did speak, though, her voice was like burnt honey. Silky smooth, but chunky in some area's. "It could have been the fact that we only know that Earth stone has a melting point of whatever d-degree's Celsius. We don't know what kind of melting point, or even _material, _that we are standing on this very second," she paused, even though her voice wasn't raising a single decibel, and started to breath heavier, almost panting like she was heavily out of breath. Kurt shrugged it off as a side-effect of severe malnourishment.

"So," Kurt started, "you're suggesting that the rocks and earth- erm... dirt, soil, and other environmental things are all comprised of different mathematical extremities?"

"Essentially, yes," She replied with an easy flipping of her hand to rest on a cocked hip, suffering a barely audible sniffle from a congested airway, "Everything here _should_ have a completely different chemical make-up than back home- not that we'll be able to get there anyway." Deela added that last part as an off-side comment, but the ever acerbic pace and fervent glow in Melina's approaching eye's told a whole 'nother story.

"I'm sorry, did I hear you correctly?" She spat venemously.

"Hey, give her a break, Melly," Kurt thankfully interjected, however awkward his nickname for her, "she's in a rough spot at the moment..." His voice trails off next to Melina's hoarse yelling.

"Did you say that we were not going to be seeing back home? That we were not going to ever be _able_ to get back there?!"

"Yeah," Deela replied weakly, almost fed up with even trying to fight back against the obnoxiously rampant woman, "I did. But hey, it's kind of true. I mean, look around. I don't see any technology-"

Melina ever kindly interrupts with a click on her tongue against the roof of her mouth, popping a quick _tsk._"We're in the goddamn forest. Of course there is no technology."

"I don't see any technology around and we haven't even found a town, city, or village yet. Not even a single outpost. The only things we've found so far are a creepy and most likely haunted cabin, and a.. a... I don't even know what it is!" Deela exclaimed, wringing her hands so they appear like bones near her shoulders and throwing them down in exasperation, "And, even he tried to kill us! So, yeah. No technology, no knowledge of where we are in our own star system, no knowledge of where we are even on the small planet-" The memory of standing over the edge of the cliff, seeing those other floating pieces of land as if she were on some giant magnet, or gas giant where the gas was just thick enough to hold these islands stable, shut her up quickly.

"Uhh, stars, maybe?" Melina scolded bitterly. Her incessant ignorance made both of the others feel unwelcome, but only Deela had the courage to stand up to Melina verbally. Kurt was courageous in a fight, not in a test of linguistic operations.

"What...?"

"The stars, duh. Constellations and stuff, they can tell us which way earth is!" Melina held her hands in her armpits, arms folded in front of her chest as she turned away from them subtly. Non-verbally, she was closed off to everyone elses opinions.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but no, they can't." Deela spoke in a soft whisper now, fearing the inevitably screech encroaching from Melina's sad excuse for an open airway- she wished it was a closed one.

"What do you mean, _they can't_?!" Even though she was expecting it, Deela recoiled slightly and opened then closed her mouth in silence for a few moments. Finally, she got the words to say something.

"They're the constellations on Earth because we view it from Earth. The constellations are visible to Earthians because we are one of the many points that they shine on. Now, if we're not _on_ Earth, we cannot see the constellations because they would not shine on us. Even if we did, they may be backwards, upside down, or all jumbled up. So, no matter what, they would not lead us to Earth. I'm sorry."

* * *

**A/N:** _Didn't I say that I'd barely have any of these Author Notes? Awkward...Hehe...  
Aaaanyway~ After much, much, MUCH, delay. The 9th chapter is here and, surprise! It's a two-parter. You'll have to stay tuned to see what happens in Grateful Grotto- Part 2! _

_I know what happens... But I can't tell you... well, I could... but I'll tell you in Part 2, what happens in Part 2! See that sneakyness? Yes, that. Right there. That is why you love me._

**Love and** **Laughter,**  
_Cynder~_

_P.S., Don't forget to Review! Really! It helps a lot. A lot, a lot... It does! I swear I'm not greedy..._


	10. Grateful Grotto-- Part 2

"_Water is a funny thing. It can be your best ally, or your worst enemy. It can change the world in a matter of seconds."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**IX. Grateful Grotto- Part II.**

* * *

_There are the odd placements,_

_you can use them to your advantage._

_But don't overstay your welcome,_

_the wildlife here are vicious during the day._

* * *

It had been at least 10 minutes since anyone had spoke. The argument seemed to steam in everyone's mind, replaying back and forth over and over again like an old home movie. The uneasy silence seemed to almost grow on Deela. As long as Melina wasn't talking, Deela felt as if the moment was harmonious wave of serenity and peace. Everyone was off doing their own thing. Deela, doing what her therapist told her to do in order to keep her depression at bay, starting doing some stretches. At present, she had her legs split about double shoulder length, and her upper body (from the hips up) was bend down to the ground, staring through her legs. Deela could see the upside down image of Kurt staring at- or through- the tree's in thought. Nobody really knows what he does when he stares off into space. Even Deela's own opinion of him was that he's basically a mindless shell at this point and would probably be dead already if it weren't for her and- as much as she hated to admit it- Melina's initiative. He had his dirtied hands sticking out of his tattered pant pockets, softly kicked at the mud with his no-longer-shiny black boots. Whereas Melina was off by the small pond again, peering into the surface as if she could see something beneath it.

A slight tilt of her head confirmed her suspicions of Emily still being unconscious, but safe, right beside her athletic and lithe body. Deela didn't know what the groupds next step was; She had been too caught up hoping that Emily would just wake up and the world would be fine and dandy now that she has a local childhood friend here. Unfortunately, the opposite was the reality. Emily hadn't awoken yet, Melina was still spouting some indignant slur about the rest of their incompetence and as for Kurt... Well, he seemed to be more on Melina's side, but Deela thought that he just didn't want anyone to hurt the other too the case may be with that indecisive slob of a marine, Deela reasoned that he wasn't harming their chances of survival at the moment. After all, he did even present them with rations for which they survived off of for days.

The moment she thought of food, she knew it was a bad idea. Her stomach started to gurgle- it wasn't quietly either. Melina cocked her head to the side, breaking her from whatever she was thinking of before. "Could you keep that down a bit, Fatcakes? I'm trying to figure out how to keep my life over here." She shot across the small distance.

A strong urge to shoot back a retort of her own came out of no where. Sadly though, Deela knew that she had to be the bigger person and completely ignore Melina's pointless metaphorical jab. After all, Melina was probably just looking for a fight.

Instead, Deela turned her attention to Emily and off of food for the time being. Emily's scratched and battered unconscious body reminded her of what could happen at a moments notice. Even looking around though, she realized that things could change in a minute if you're not too careful. Hell, just falling asleep out of your bed one night and then you end up in some godforsaken other worldly planet._ That's kind of a large jump between normality and Science-Fiction, _she thought quietly to herself.

It was then that she noticed something had caught Melina's gaze. Deela didn't particularly want to know what it was out of fear of the inevitable slur of insults that bestow every _enlightening_ conversation with the vexing woman but, at the same time, she needed to know. It could be something important. Just as well, it could be something completely and utterly mundane as well. _Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back_, Deela argued with herself before standing up from the stretch.

She decided to take one last look at Emily's placid and resting face before sauntering up to Melina. She didn't want to do this, but she knew it would eat away at her until it wasn't even relevant any more. She knew that she would have to ask eventually, and no doing it is just a waste of time, a charade for her own self-pity. That still didn't change the fact that Deela despised Melina's completely encompassing duplicitous and malevolently abasing attitude towards almost anything with a heartbeat.

"What are you looking at, Melina? Is there something there?" She asked, her tone heavy with determination and light on fear. Melina turned her head sideways again to peer at the awaiting female. She opened her maw and closed it once, twice, three times. _Is she trying to be a fish? The pool's right there, we could find out..._

"Yeah, actually captain Obvious. See in the water how it's crystal clear and you can almost see the bottom. And even then it isn't that deep, right?" Melina spoke in a tone fit for an adult to a child. Utterly demeaning.

"Yeah, why? Is there some sea monster in there waiting to grab us at the most opportune moment or something?" Deela mockingly questioned back.

"No, you intellectually defunct being. Look, over there, opposite where we're standing, see it?" she asked again, now pointing her right arm, "That darkened spot in the rock about 5 feet below the surface."

"Yeah, I do," Deela replied earnestly, allowing some amount of enthusiasm in her voice as if the sight of something other than a vexing torrent of spite is a sign of hope, "What is it though?"

"Hell if I know. I just found it and you interrupted my thought process, how am I supposed to know if you keep doing that?!" Melina ranted off in return. Instead of replying in kind, Deela just strutted off back to Emily's unconscious corpse. Perhaps something of the familiar face could bring her fuming state to a cooling end.

Sadly, that was not the case. The constant lingering of that underwater cave made Deela curious and, when she was curious, there was nothing that could stop her in her trek to find out what it is.

"Kurt, any idea's yet?" Melina asked in a surprisingly uplifting tone that Deela could tell was forced since it did not suit her vocal registry in the slightest.

"No, not yet Melina. Still working on it. Though, you know, we could just swim down there. It's like... What. 5 feet?" Kurt replied casually, his frame still focuses towards the forest though he head was tilted to peer over his shoulder.

"No, you dumbass, we can't do that. The water could be poisonous, it could be infested with piranha or some human eating animal like leeches. I'm not going down there if my life depended on it." Melina shot back viciously and venomously. It was clear that she was _not_ going down into that cave.

"Well, if you won't," Deela spoke quietly, still peering at Emily's frozen corpse, "than we will." She picked up Emily in her arms and quickly lifted her to rest upon her shoulders.

"Deela, I don't think that's such a great ide-" before Kurt could finish his sentence, Deela and Emily were gone. A solid splash echoed the uncomfortable silence of the two characters as they stood staring, dumbfounded, at the spot where Deela and Emily had just been.

"Did she just...?" asked Kurt, stumped.

"I... I think she did," Melina added equally as stupified.

"How do you think she's holding up? It's quite dark in there... and there's a small current from the waterfall... She could drown..." Kurt added protectively.

"Don't be such a worry wort, she's fine. The current is small and she would be that stupid to drown herself like that. Besides, she has that unconscious chick in her hand. I mean, I don't doubt her stupidity to drown herself and, hell, it'd be much easier if she did, but I don't think that she would." Melina paused to take a quick couple of breaths. "Besides, the only way she would drown is if she doesn't come up for about 5 minutes or something like that, right? She's skinny enough, she'll float," and with that, Melina just sauntered away from the pool to sit down with her back resting on a tree facing the supposedly still serene body of water. Kurt, on the other hand, was visually pacing around. His feet seemed to dig into the rough soil like it was butter, easily chipping away at the soft exterior to expose the archaic unturned earth... if it could even be called earth at this point.

"I don't like it," Kurt spoke softly, "She shouldn't of done it without a plan... You always need a plan."

"She's impulsive, Kurt. She does things the way she wants to and if someone gets in her way, they won't matter to her. I'd even wager that she would cut down that KO'd chick if she stood in front of her goal," Melina tested, seeing Kurt's reaction.

Unbeknownst to the nonchalant, spiteful demon, and the worried pacer, both Deela and Emily were perfectly fine. The moment Deela submerged in that silvery-tinted water she knew that she had made the right decision. If she were to stay on dry land with the other two slackers, nothing would've happened and they would most likely have stayed there until Emily had faced death due to malnourishment or thirst. Deela was not prepared to let that happen any time in her life as long as she could prevent it. This _was_ something that she could prevent however, and she was grateful because of it.

She was holding her unconscious friend with both her arms so that she wouldn't lose her in the dark ominous depths of the pool. With her arms busy, she wasn't able to commit to a full breast stroke or, really, any other variety of swim she could think of; so she settled simply for just waving her legs up and down like a scuba diver in hopes that it would work.

Surprisingly enough, and to her great fortune, it did. She was moving along slowly, but surely, towards where she had spotted the cave from the surface. Though, underwater it had almost altered it's appearance by adopting a pseudo-camouflage, rendering it almost impossible to see from under the water. But, thankfully, it had a small draft of current that was being sucked into the it which Deela ever so luckily could feel.

A brief moment of contemplation rushed through her mind as to whether or not she should be entering this unknown cave if what could possibly be her death. If the slowly depriving feeling in her lungs wasn't enough of a hint, she would soon acquire one as she stayed under the surface for longer and longer; Deela was losing air, fast.

Deela had to make up her mind with great haste or suffer the consequence, and with death of not only herself but Emily as well being the only consequence, she knew that she couldn't afford it. There was no getting off this planet at the present time, and it didn't look likely that there ever would be. Death would be the only way off the planet, and to get it over so quickly, to end her life by saving her friend or at least attempting to save her friend is well worth it in her mind.

Deela daringly took the plunge into what could as well be the rock hard surface to the quaint canyon wall, yet judging from where it was from the surface, she knew it was here. Her feet kicked up the current and accelerated her towards the hole in the otherwise flat and stoney surface. Fractions of seconds past the young depression-laden girl as she swam to the hole. Small bits of air choked free from her nose, sluggishly depriving her lungs of her life essence until, suddenly, she hit it.

A void of vision formed in the corners of her sight as her mouth widened, releasing the left over air from her lungs. Deela swam to the top with mighty haste, pulling Emily along with her making sure that Emily doesn't suffer Deela's price for poor navigation. Millions of thoughts raced through Deela's mind as she tried to figure out what she had just rammed herself into. Her crowded thought process quickly proved ill toward her and she knew the hole was supposed to be there. It was probably something from the blackened depths that she had run smack-dab into. Most likely some unknown, other-wordly sea creature she reasoned which only heightened her resolve to pop up to the surface where light would surely burn the fear away.

Several heart-wrenching, water gagging seconds later, her head surfaced through the water followed closely by Emily's. Deela promptly swam over to the closest end of dry land, opposite of a hysterically laughing Melina and worrisome Kurt, and set Emily up upon it. She speedily checked Emily for her breath and pulse, fortunately getting a positive reading from both of them. Somehow, Emily did not swallow any water, whereas Deela was damn near _still_ coughing up liquid that remained in her shriveling lung cavities.

Soon, her retching had quieted down and she had gotten rid of the last of the water in her lungs. It was then that she noticed Melina still laughing. Not as powerful as before, but still quiet determined in her ridicule. "What's so-" a quick cough interrupts her sentence, "What's so funny... and what the hell did I hit? Did you see any monster or anything? Jeez, it was like the shadow was chasing me!"

Deela's explanation on increased Melina's bellowing laugh to more of a guffaw of sorts.

"Hello...? Earth to Melina...?" Deela said in a guttural voice that may have passed as trance-like if she hadn't just almost drowned.

"You, you smart-a-holic!" Melina managed to fit out between body shaking laughter, "You managed to swim _straight_ into the stone wall. And, further more," She added after her laugher had died down to a small giggle that wavered in her tone of voice, "that shadow that was chasing you was your own. There was no massive beast or anything. You fell victim to the detrimental fears and primordial callings of humans nature that is to conjure the worst idea possible in place of the unknown came into play."

"Oh." Deela breathed.

"Yeah. 'Oh' is right, you mental nutcase." Melina added for good measure. However unnecessary it was, it wasn't out of play for the wicked witch.

"Screw you two, I'm going back down to find it. Now, if you would so kindly tell me where it is..." Deela threw out to no one in particular and just anyone who would bother to listen.

"Move right a few, then you're on top of it. As much as I'd love to watch you bang your noggin on the rocks again, I don't think we have that much more time for it." Melina replied helpfully, much to Deela and Kurts' surprise.

"Also, don't forget to look for food under there. Whether it be fish or.. plants... whatever. We need sustenance. Anything with protein would be nice, really." Kurt smiled earnestly.

"Sure, I'll keep my eye's as open as possible under there... It's not murky, but it stings..." Deela replied coldly. She wasn't exactly feeling up to the whole conversation aspect of relationships at the moment. She simply wanted to dive in again and find out where that cave leads and that's exactly what she did.

A swift jump with a breath and she was inside the luke-warm water once more, leaving Emily up on the shore so that Deela could explore inside the cave a little. Without an unconscious body lagging her, she was fully able to breast stroke down quicker than before which saved her a great deal of time.

The water swirled around Deela as she hastily swam her way down toward the hole. Laying a hand out to feel the rocky surface and where it ended this time so she wouldn't headbutt the carapace a second time. _One mistake is enough on this journey._

Soon enough, without much time lost, Deela had found where the entrance to the cave started and, thanks to the ever slight current, affirmed that it was the right place. She knew she still had enough air to make it in and out before anything drastic would happen to her, even if she was still afraid as trespassing any lower than she was right now. Melina's words hadn't quite gotten through to her. Sure, it could be humans mature to think that and stuff, but what if there really is something at the bottom of this body of water? What if it is actually something that could kill her?

The last thought sent shivers down her spine, so intense that the warmish water couldn't even cure it. One quick pull of her arms and wave of her feet and she was inside of the almost pitch black tunnel. The only light was being emitted from behind her A few more seconds and she was plunged into light again which was strange because, she could see any light in front of her before it just... appeared.

Looking up, Deela spotted some rippled and what seemed to be a pocket of air. Even if there was enough room for just a head, it would be useful to make note of it. She dutifully scaled the water and peeped her head into the small crevice of air, filling her lungs again before submerging under the mysterious depths.

She didn't know where to go, really, is was almost pitch black other than that random spot of light from the air pocket. She rounded a corner, spotted thanks to her hand scraping against it in her most recent stroke and found a weird looking outline. It appeared to be quite cylindrical, but rounded on the edges as well. Almost as if it was a giant bolder in the middle of no where. Curiously, Deela swam up to the object and cautiously laid her palm on it, knocking on it as well just as a precaution. It was solid _stone._

_Why would someone put stone here.. why is it here. _Deela wondered. She started to swim up, peering at the stone the entire time as she slowly rose. It seemed that it got more bulbous on the sides the higher she went up, more and more flat as well. Soon enough, even though she didn't realize it at first, she was breathing in air and treading the water. She blinked a couple of times before noticing that she wasn't holding her breath any more. Deciding to be the courageous one that she always was, she pulled herself atop of the stone boulder which seemed sturdy enough to stand on. Her assumptions proved to be correct, yet again, as the boulder was stable enough for her to stand, walk, lay down, and even jump on. Nothing she could do could even make the large stone inch.

A curious light began to fill the room from the top down. Deela noticed this and hesitantly peered upwards, however ambivalent she may feel about doing so. Right above the middle of the room was a funnel like shape, sprouting into foliage of tree's and plants, but still letting the sun shine right through as well as, Deela guessed, the moon light. The room was now all visible as the orange light traversed down the wall in a glinting radiance. The place looked almost exactly like a funnel. A long and narrow tube-top opening at the top which slowly curved outwards to a more bottle-like holding area. The boulder that she was standing on stretched almost wall to wall. A small part off of the right wall was equipped with an eroded section of rock to give way to a sandy alcove that glew an aqua blue iridescent light. Opposite that, on the left side, there was a meter wide opening to the pitch black water that she had risen up from.

_Oh, man. They're going to be stoked when they hear about this._ She thought happily.

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**A/N: **_So... Yeah. Hehe^^ Next installment of my fantabulamazing story! I hope you have a good read, I kind of rushed this one last minute... I seem to like doing that for some reason... w  
Read and Review!3 Love you long time, hehe. =)_

**Love and Laughter,  
**_~Cyndercide._


	11. Food Finally-- Part 1

"_Ten reasons to hunt, drink, and battle. Ten reasons to enjoy, love, and crave. Ten reasons to relax, settle, and sigh. There are ten reasons to live."_

* * *

**No Man's Land.**

**#**

**X. Food, Finally.**  
_**Part I.**_

* * *

_Once you're secured_

_in a fortress... station... battlement..._

_Whatever._

_Do not leave. And live within your means._

* * *

The moon still hung admittedly high in the pristine and snappishly cold air minutes after Deela had taken the plunge into the water. Seconds were being counted by Kurt's worried lips as he breathed humorlessly, staring into the warm clear and, somehow undisturbed, body of water. /When was Deela going to come out? She's bound to come out some point soon, right?/ Kurt wondered to himself, not daring to speak aloud just yet.

Melina was nearby too- about as nearby you would be to a pit of hissing snakes during a soft autumn night. She wasn't shaking from the cold, she wasn't dancing from worry, or anything. Melina visibly displayed zero of the symptoms of empathy- for that matter- about the entire ordeal. As if, in a couple minutes, she would proclaim Deela as 'Missing-in-Action' and carry on like nothing had ever happened.

"Aren't you at least the slightest bit worried for Deela's safety right now, Mel?" Kurt inquired, trying to be somewhat friendly to the shewitch.

"Aren't you at least the slightest bit more sensitive to someone's will of not being bugged, Kur?" Her voice trailed on the wind, not even facing him directly. She spat his name in mockery and disgust, obviously not liking her own pet name.

"Yeah, you're- Actually no. Deela might as well be dead down there right now and all you can think about is not wanting to be bugged?" Kurt had a sudden surge of domination, not intent on being the subservient anymore... or, at least, for this encounter.

Sadly, Melina only shrugged her reply in a half-assed manner and whispered a soft, "Eh."

"Really, Melina? After everything that she's done for you so far? Even though you've only met her about what...? 3... 4 days ago now? Do you really think so little of her to just wish her away like that? That if she went away after almost sacrificing her life to save the both of us, that's how you would treat her? Just throw her away and to hell with her? That's really sick and twisted, woman." Kurt was near at the end of his rope with the cretin by now. All she did was criticize and complain. Now she's expressing her apathy towards another human being- another living person- that saved her life, and she doesn't even bat an eye when she could be drowning.

That sure enough ripped her attention from whatever ledge it was sitting upon and knocked it down to stare right in the face of Kurt's smoldering justice. "Don't you dare lecture me Kurt," She started, nostrils flaring comically, "You don't know my reasoning for doing so so you can just bug off. I'm not up for what you are trying to pull and it's making me angry. I suggest you cease whatever godforsaken scheme you're trying to pull over me and call it quits because that's exactly what it is," Melina paused for a few seconds, eye's wandering the sky, searching for stars or anything bearing any quantity of notoriety to her but she only found more of these cycling and spinning islands, "Don't judge my path if you haven't walked my journey."

Kurt's fists balled up at his sides, arms subtly shaking in anger as he attempted to keep his voice mellow and calm. "I've not judged your path. I've not judged you. I've merely wondered about your lack of empathy towards others. You might want to start showing some before you begin to make enemies. Especially here, you wouldn't want that."

Melina started to open her normally flippant maw, but was interrupted by Kurt's icy voice, "And no. This is not me mocking you. This is me looking out for you," he shot at her before mechanically walking over to Emily's body on the opposite side of the pool. Slightly surprised by the lack of retorts by the ever-witty shedevil across the pool now, he kneels down beside Emily's lazy and, thankfully warm, corpse, gently stroking her hands with a wistful sigh.

_I wonder what you would've been like, if only we had met. Were you nice? Caring? Sweet or kind?_

Without warning, the water in the middle of the circular pond starting to bubble slightly, and suddenly, splashed upward exposing some dirty, soaked blonde and blue hair followed by the rest of Deela, herself. Kurt jumped, shocked, before he started to calm his shaking nerves back to normal. He didn't catch a glimpse of Melina, but he's sure that she wouldn't have even moved at all.

A few quick and rapid breath's to catch Deela's breath back before she spoke in a rushed tone. "There's a," she pauses to take another breath, "thingy down here. Perfect place to stay," another breath, "Melina was right. There is something down the rabbits hole. Now if only Alice will follow us."

Kurt chuckled softly at Deela's childish analogy, "What would you like me to do about it? I can help you get Emily down, but," He took a quick break to nod his head towards Melina, "I don't think we could get everyone down easily."

"Well," Deela whispered, "We'll just take Emily down and, if Melina wants to continue living, she can follow us or risk being killed off during the night," A subtly crease in the corner of her mouth gave her smile away before it even appeared.

"I don't like it.. She could get hurt or worse if she doesn't follow us down... And speaking of down, how far is it? Is there enough air?" Kurt wondered on his slight soliloquy.

"Oh yeah, trust me," Deela spoke with confidence that was shockingly uncommon whilst Melina was present, "There's even a small air pocket. Don't worry about Emily, she'll be fine though. It'll be just like summer camp all those years ago," She added a small, childish smile that somehow made the whole situation that much more agreeable.

Something made Kurt feel an uncomfortable trust within her decision. Within the few days that he had known her, she wasn't exactly the most forthright or confident being. Yet the way she was talking about this expedition seemed upbeat and innocent. It was almost reminiscent of a child taking an adult down a murky cavern, only to reveal an amazing utopia on the other side.

With a small sigh, Kurt agreed and secured his hands around Emily's wrists before looking up toward the ever uncaring Melina. "We're going to check it out... We're bringing Emily as well, you coming?" he asked, just like nothing had just happened between the two of them.

"Don't talk to me," she replied expectantly.

"Well," Kurt whispered in a mocking hush, "I don't think she'll be coming straight away."

Nodding in response, Deela chuckled softly, a smile curving her soft lips, "No, I don't think so at all... Come on, grab her wrists, I'll get her legs. And please try to make sure that her head is higher than her feet."

"Will do!" Kurt added with a smile before hopping directly into the pool, sliding her along the grass patch a short ways before pulling her in the water completely with a very audible _splash_. "Last chance!" he shouter out to Melina who, as expected, gave no response.

In turn, the conscious duo, carrying the unconscious uno, dove under the water. Kurt, holding onto Emily's wrist and being careful to keep her head above the level of her feet, expertly navigated through the crystal clear upper region of the pool behind Deela. Before long, they made it to the mouth of the entrance and, with Emily neatly packed horizontally between the two of them, they entered. Approaching the small pocket of air neatly nestled away at the top of the rock formation, Deela looked behind her, at Kurt, and motioned her hand upward.

With a muffled slooshing sound, Deela's head poked out of the water, just enough to let her breathing room as Kurt and, soon, Emily's head popped up to (held by Kurts hands as his feet treated the water).

"Where do we-" a gasp for air captured the next few seconds from the two of them while water simply streamed out from Emily's ears, nose, and mouth, "W-where do we go from here?" Kurt asked, his voice quivering with the silent chill that suddenly sprung upon the water.

"It's not far from here, really. It's just about another ten second or so swim, honest! Oh and, please open Emily's mouth for a second so she can intake some of this nice, glorious air," Deela casually chatted with a leisurely smile upon her dripping face. The water had soaked both of their hair now, Kurt's not showing any difference other than a slight colour dampening whereas Deela's and Emily's hair clung against their bodies, losing it's volume and darkening in shade.

"You ready to go?" Deela asked after seeing Kurt's breathing back to normal and Emily's mouth and nose no longer dripping water.

"Yuppers, waiting on you," Kurt replied as he closed Emily's mouth gently.

"Alright then, let's go. Just follow me!" she cried, taking a deep breath and diving back into the solemnly blue water and dashing off toward the rock.

"Hey!" Kurt called before he submerged himself and, carefully lowering Emily, set off after Deela in a friendly race.

* * *

**A/N: **_*Bashfully waves* Hi... so... Yeah... 10- almost 11 days late... and not even up to par with my word count... I apologize for this, truly, I do. I kind'a sorta ran into some writers block... But, I know no excuse is great enough for this so I won't even try. I hope you guy's enjoy the chapter, and.. I'll see what I can put out within this month. Sorry for all the inactivity and everything.. My deepest and most sincere regards._

_~Cynder._

_P.S., Have no fear. I'm not done with this story yet._


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